Remember Virtual Reality? Yeah, that's right. I'm talking about that thing that threatened to revolutionise the digital entertainment industry and make our eyeballs become cubes, only to fade nearly as quickly as it popped up. Before its pixels fizzled from the limelight, however, Hollywood got its dirty paws on it and misrepresented it in that way that only Hollywood can. The Lawnmower Man is the obvious example, but I was up late the other night and was lucky enough to be reminded of another: 1994's Disclosure.
Michael Douglas stars in yet another role that sees him caught up in a dangerous affair with a mental female, despite him looking like a prune with a supernatural mullet. Demi Moore portrays said nutjob tweaker, and soon she's playing mind games with M-Dog, accusing him of all sorts of naughty behaviour. The sordid incident gets dragged through some badly staged hearings, which are dull and drawn out. This all takes place against the backdrop of the software company where they both work. And here's where the film starts to stupidly slip from being a psychosexual drama into a poorly realised technothriller.
To prove his innocence, Michael Douglas has to use his company's latest trinket, a virtual reality rig. In the computer world, he looks exactly the same as his real-life counterpart, only with a virtual reality headset on. Genius. As is Hollywood's way with the world of computers, this digital space has been sexed up to look like what people wanted the future to look like back then; the walls and floor that surround cyberDouglas are constantly (and needlessly) shifting and morphing in all their ray traced glory.
Crap story short, Disclosure is a mess. I'd only seen it once before, and when I saw it was going to be on again I described it to my girlfriend as best I could remember. She didn't believe me that it had virtual reality bits, as it sounded too ludicrous to be something the filmmakers would put in. I'd suggest she's right, but then if they didn't have these silly technological flights of fancy, the movie would be poorer for it. If nothing else, it's an interesting snapshot of the mid-90's idea of where we thought it was all going. Too bad you have to drill through the nigh-impenetrable tedium of the real-life scenes if you want to mine the rich vein of unintentional comedy platinum.
On the flipside, the other film I watched on the weekend was the ridiculously kinetic Crank. Yes, I know, I'm late to the party. Shot on DV, this cheap and grotty little film is hilarious and efficient with the excitement it generates. I'm a sucker for movies that contain Jason Statham (although I've avoided this one), and this delivers him in stubbled spades. Without revealing the plot this film sees Statham hit the ground running and turning up the badassery even more. Although it seems to start to run out of juice (and the ability to suspend disbelief) a bit towards the end, the sheer audacity of it all gets Crank across the line. Not brilliantly brilliant, but certainly balls-out entertaining. Plus it's got a few cameos by cherished oldschool games, so bonus points there.
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