Retro Review: Virtuosity

 This is going to be the shortest Retro Review in the history of the Blogorium, because I have but one and only one memory to impart about the film Virtuosity. Forget The Towering Inferno. Forget The Poseidon Adventure. Forget Earthquake. There is but one movie of dubious merit that is, pound-for-pound, the most stacked with people who SHOULD KNOW BETTER: Academy Award Winners Denzel Washington (Training Day), Russell Crowe (Gladiator), and Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) join UFC and WWF Champion Ken Shamrock (Scarecrow Gone Wild) in what was the second sci-fi bomb of 1995 (after Johnny Mnemonic).

 I remember almost nothing about Virtuosity. It's easily been ten years since I last saw it, and other than knowing that Denzel is the good guy and Russell Crowe is the virtual reality serial killer who gets loose, I couldn't tell you anything about the movie. Nothing. Instead, I pulled up the cast list on IMDB and discovered that Virtuosity is a treasure trove of "that guy"'s, many of whom I would clearly recognize if I saw the film again today*. Let's have a look, shall we?

 A quick glimpse shows me William Fichtner (Drive Angry), William Forsythe (Dick Tracy), Kelly Lynch (Cocktail), Cotas Mandylor (Saw VII), Kevin J. O'Connor (Lord of Illusions), Christopher Murray (Smokin' Aces), Traci Lords (Cry Baby), Dustin Ngyuen (Rapid Fire), Anthony Winters (Sneakers), and last but not least Michael "Let's Get Ready to RUMMMMMMBLLLLLLE!" Buffer (Rocky V).

 All this talent in one movie, along with three people (and Ken Shamrock) who ought to have known better. I guess I could give Russel Crowe a pass, but Denzel Washington was in Malcolm X. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Malcolm X, for crying out loud. The man didn't need to slum - that's what Ricochet was for, and Ricochet is GREAT!

 Since I can't tell you much more about the movie, or even how we saw it (it must have been on VHS), let's take a look at the creative team, shall we? Director Brett Leonard cut his teeth with The Dead Pit, The Lanwmower Man, and Hideaway (with Jeff Goldlum) before moving on to make Virtuosity. After that, he made Man-Thing, Highlander: The Source, and Sigfried & Roy: The Magic Box. Writer Eric Bernt wrote Surviving the Game (good job!), Romeo Must Die, Highlander: Endgame (bad job!), Bachelor Party Vegas, and the remake of The Hitcher for Platinum Dunes. Now I suppose you could argue that each peaked before Virtuosity, but I like to pretend it was their "high water mark" before an inexorable decline.

 So, uh, what have we learned? That if I wanted to Spoil this movie, I'd have to look it up? Yep. That sometimes you really can totally forget about a movie you see until it pops up somewhere? Check. That maybe you should put a trailer at the bottom of a Retro Review to help convince yourself the film exists? Why, look at that!

 



* At the time, Crowe would be in that list too, as I hadn't seen Romper Stomper or The Quick and the Dead to that point.