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Forty years after the ocean died, and the last tree fell in the last rain forest, the air became unbreathable. Mankind moved underground and decided to ravage the last uncharted terrain, the final frontier: the human mind. Such is the premise of Circuitry Man, a semi-cyberpunk, science-fiction adventure film that attempts to delve into the realm of non-remote, hard-wired mind control. “Plugging In” to the brains of humans and cyborgs to gain knowledge and wage war is an interesting idea that is probably best remembered in The Matrix. This low-budget film tries a lot of new things but is rarely able to effectively entertain. The opening title sequence is a precursor to the Speed movie lead credits, except for the nightclub act female vocals by Deborah Holland, which continue to play over the top of various segues, continually taking the audience completely out of the science-fiction atmosphere. It’s an uncommon touch, but hardly fitting. The story is set in Subterranean Los Angeles in the near future. The Juice (Lu Leonard), a big-time smuggler, needs a bodyguard and has one particular woman in mind - Lori (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), a tough-as-nails fighter turned fashion designer, who has to battle a trio of bizarre thugs, led by the suit-and-tie-wearing blonde Yoyo (Barbara Alyn Woods) to prove it. She’s recruited and, during an illegal chip exchange gone bad, flees with a suitcase of valuable merchandise and takes the blame for the death of Juice, who dies at the hands of the maniacal gangster Plughead (Vernon Wells). Lori needs to get to New York to unload the loot, and needs the help of a bio-synthetic Romeo pleasure droid named Danner O’Merrick (Jim Metzler), who can drive. Their first stop is Jugs (Garry Goodrow), an older man with the lower half of his body now completely fused with scrap metal, which moves around by a giant pulley system, who can furnish them some wheels. |
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They drive around, seemingly aimlessly, through an enormous parking garage that never ends. It’s there that they discover the only way to their destination is to go topside, and only the toxic sewer-leech-eating Leech (Dennis Christopher) has the oxygen to do it. Once outside, they’re in a vast desert with hazardous dust and abrasive country music. Plughead is in hot pursuit, and overweight cop Beany (Paul Willson) and his squeamish partner Squid (Andy Goldberg) are tracking both groups every step of the way. “Drop the heaters and kiss the carpet!” cries Beany, delivering a classically cheesy quote from the initial chip-bust. The dialogue is expectedly terrible and the acting is extremely flat. Oddly, most of the action takes place offscreen, as if the budget didn’t allow for sets to actually get destroyed or for stunts to be choreographed. When Lori tries on one of her handmade outfits and twirls for Danner, it’s shot from the bust up, so the audience doesn’t even get to see her garments. Sadly, that scene along with many others, simply don’t belong in the film. Even the final showdown takes place in the background with the action nowhere near the forefront. The coolest character is Plughead, an ex-psychotherapist turned legitimate crook. He seems to be the only one who can make use of plugging directly into machines to control them and into human heads to download their memories, even though many of the other characters reference the tool. He mixes being a serious baddie with a joke-cracking goofball, but still manages to be a formidable foe and the only memorable character. In addition to Plughead, the underground sets have a distinct style, ominously dark, dingy, and full of wires, tubes, and smoke, giving the look of the film a slight advantage over equally bland fare. - Mike Massie
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