30 Odd Foot of Clicks

Random reminder that I have a podcast (even I forget) and that in my most recent episode, the great Christine Makepeace and I dove into Red Rooms and its obvious pairing, 1995's The Net. 

I wrote about The Net a lifetime ago, but found it even more impressive this time around. As a thriller, it's perfectly sleek, but the real surprise was how once you look past the details (floppy disks, PIZZA DOT NET), the actual story is just as relevant THIRTY YEARS later.

Anyhoo, now that we all feel like dinosaurs, it only feels right to see ANOTHER studio-sized techno-horror from the same year.

Quick Plot: A technology firm has teamed up with a maximum security prison to enlist inmates in some virtual reality testing. Ex-cop turned convicted murderer Parker Barnes (the world's best movie star Denzel Washington) and a pre-Saw Costas Mandylor are hunting serial killer SID 6.7 in a video game sushi restaurant when something goes wrong. Our beloved before-he-was-Jigsaw-5.0 is killed, as investors decide to pull the plug on this totally reasonable experiment.

Not so fast. Head developer Darrel Lindenmeyer (the kind of wormy little man who you'd meet and say, "I bet his last name is Lindenmeyer") is so proud of SID 6.7 that he simply can't bear to say goodbye. If you love something, you set it free, even if that something is a computer program amalgam of 200 serial killers condensed into baby Russell Crowe's buttocks.

SID is quick to turn LA into his own very '90s murder playground. He storms a rave and MMA fighting event, always framing his kills in perfect view of a running camera. 

Naturally, there's only one man who can stop SID's rampage. 

Well, one man and a randomly paired blond sidekick with a precocious child perfectly constructed to be put in danger.

Virtuosity was probably never going to be a great film. The fact that I've taken multiple paragraphs to set something up before reaching the 20 minute mark of a 98-minute film and STILL haven't addressed half of the cast (OSCAR WINNER LOUISE FLETCHER FOR GOODNESS SAKE) should probably indicate that there's a bit too much going on here. 

Even Denzel thought so. The biggest drag in Virtuosity is whatever the heck the plan was for Kelly Lynch's Dr. Madison Carter. She's a criminal psychologist intent on teaming up with Parker to catch and profile SID. Naturally, she's also a single mom to baby-faced, perfectly kidnappable Kaley Cuoco. 

As a sci-fi action thriller, Virtuosity can be pretty fun. But Lynch's Carter just sticks out as an unnecessary chess piece in an already overstuffed game. It's not surprising that the first bit of behind-the-scenes trivia for this film is that the script turned Parker and Madison's relationship romantic. Whether that was ultimately cut for time, chemistry, or racial politics (most sites suggest it was Denzel Washington who thought it would alienate filmgoers), the end result of this pairing is just...off. This woman should NOT be tagging along as a seasoned cop/convicted murderer hunts down a terminator. The minute you see her equally blond-headed child, you clock exactly what will be the final conflict of what could be a far more interesting story.

So no, Virtuosity is not a hidden gem in a Blockbuster pile. It has heavy script issues that are both helped and hurt by the very '90s CGI and overall aesthetic. There's certainly a charm to its very of-its-time style. The film is never boring. But also, mostly, not that good.

High Points

Maybe it was a direct effect of having just watched the divine Sandra Bullock take over the screen in The Net, but there really is something to seeing a true movie star in action. Denzel Washington is obviously capable of deeper performances, but his work in this fairly dumb thriller is just more evidence of how insanely perfect he is as an onscreen presence.

Low Points

Aforementioned mess of Kelly Lynch's role, shoehorned into an already messy narrative and topped with one of the worst '90s haircuts to boot

Lessons Learned

You can always count on a '90s movie killer to speak in sadistic dad jokes

Never trust a computer nerd with a name like Lindenmeyer

It should probably go without saying, but there's no universe in which combining 200 serial killers into one mainframe is a good idea

Rent/Bury/Buy

Virtuosity is by no real definition a good movie. The choppy storytelling suffers from whatever happened behind the scenes, making the overall product fairly unsatisfying. But hey, there are only so many '90s techno thrillers, and even fewer that boast someone with the heft of Denzel Washington. 

Dial It Up

Pizza.

Dot. 

Net.

Quick Plot: Meet Angela Bennett, a pretty but introverted computer genius who spends the majority of her time on the internet in her home office. Despite looking like Sandra Bullock, Angela doesn't get out much or socialize. She's far more comfortable conversing in chat rooms than face-to-face, and her hottest date of recent seems to be a medium pie from pizza.net.

Ahh, the '90s. To those born in a tragically dark world before the convenience of seamless or grubhub, ordering your pepperoni from a website was once considered both futuristic and weird. Today, I see Angela's experience with pizza.net as a tragedy in itself not because it demonstrates her fear of people, but because poor little Angie was robbed of the wonder that is Domino's rather amazing, if a tad racist interactive interface that involves a talking Caribbean toucan.

Back to The Net, Angela is just about to take a Mexican beach vacation (sadly lacking pizza-talking toucans) when one of her web pals sends her a mysterious floppy disc (think USB sticks but shaped like toast) that seems to have a flaw. What should be a simple music program somehow grants savvy hackers access to government records, banking databases, and much much more.  

Angela puts the disc out of her mind to soak up the sun, drink what sounds like the worst cocktail ever known to man (WHO PUTS ONIONS IN ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T NEED ONIONS??), and flirting with a dashingly handsome Brit named Jack Deviln who seems to be painstakingly made for her. Naturally, he proves to be a creepy hitman whose job is to steal the disc and leave Angie swimming with the pescados.

Thankfully, Devlin turns out to be absolutely terrible at his job. Maybe it's all the Gibsons he drinks, but the man is woefully unprofessional. For a company that later proves to be manipulating major banks, corporations, and the federal government, they ultimately show some rather large holes in their hiring practices.

That doesn't make life any easier for Angela, or as the evil web company has now renamed her, Ruth. Though she manages to get back to the States, her ID has been swapped for an ex-con drug addict whose name sends red flags to all police officers or other professionals she tries to enlist for help. Her only friend/ex-lover/ex-therapist/ex-yes-that's-very-icky-and-the-movie-doesn't-really-seem-to-care Dennis Miller tries to help, but it doesn't take longer than a Weekend Update for him to fall prey to the evil corporate website killers. It's up to Angela herself, with no resources other than her own moxie and fast typing skills, to save herself and a whole lot of urls.

As an unabashed fan of '90s cinema, I was excited to revisit Irwin Winkler's film with the giggles of nostalgia. Imagine my shock/slight disappointment to discover that mom jeans and floppy discs aside, The Net really hadn't aged poorly. Sure, we've come a long way from ordering your dinner online being a sign that you are one cat away from sad spinsterhood, but the actual depiction of the world wide web doesn't necessarily feel like a relic from a time long past. Our lives ARE in the hands of those better at manipulating technology, a fact that some people fear and lazy ones like me simply accept.

The real strength of The Net, however, isn't its adorably quaint internet graphics but its adorably lovable Sandra Bullock.

Yes, it's me. The same person who wrote over a thousand words about how The Blind Side was one of the worst movies of the post-Jim Crow world. See, I contrary to what some people may think, I love Sandra Bullock. She's a delight. 

But The Blind Side really is a terrible excuse for white people feeling good.

Back to Bullock, she really is the heart of this film and it's easy to suspect any other actress would not have made The Net such a watchable movie. Fairly fresh off her star-making supporting part in Speed and romcom debut While You Where Sleeping, Bullock proved here that she had that natural charisma to keep viewers engaged in virtually any material. It's impossible not to care about Angela. Part of it is that the character makes fairly smart choices throughout the screenplay, but the bigger part is that Bullock never overdoes the character.

There are certainly drawbacks to The Net. At just under two hours, it's longer than it should be but paced intensely enough to where you don't necessarily notice. Angela's agoraphobia or social anxiety or what exactly isn't particularly well defined. Nearly all the scenes of tension end with one of those "free at the last possible minute" kind of tricks that hardly seems possible the first time, let alone the fifth time around. Still, twenty years after its debut, this remains an involving and entertaining watch.

High Points

While Angela isn't exactly Rosie the Riveter, it's a huge relief to see the film wisely avoid some potentially unsteady gender ground. The movie doesn't judge Angela for sleeping with Devlin, and while the Dennis Miller character is problematic due to the icky/unethical doctor/patient boundaries, it also doesn't tack him or anyone else on as a love interest. The men in Angela's life aren't right for her, and by the end of the film, that seems to be just okay.

Low Points

Seriously, how many times can a character turn his head only to turn back and find you have vanished? 

Lessons Learned

In Colorado you grow up with guns

In the mid '90s, one could always count on a perfectly timed street parade to commence just as you might need a giant crowd to escape into

Hotel televisions have a remarkable ability to turn to just the right news station that has a shred of a story relevant to your current affairs

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, it's not a treasure of its time, but I really enjoyed The Net. Angela's Cassandra-like warnings of the internet's borg-like assimilation knowledge have essentially proven true, and we didn't even have to kill Dennis Miller to get there. Fans of this type of movie--especially from this era--might be surprised at how a dial-up tone aside, this has saged surprisingly well. For the others, enjoy some pizza.net