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It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Movie

Reader Review


Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

Posted by: Daniel Kiwi
Date Submitted: Sunday, March 14, 1999 at 20:17:03
Date Posted: Monday, March 15, 1999 at 03:26:22

To describe this movie accurately, I would have to quote the TV show "Mystery Science Threatre 3000," which called it "terrible and extremely confusing." I think that is the perfect way to describe it. The movie starts out in a bland, rather stereotypical way. The main character, whose name my mind has mercifully repressed, is caught watching movies during work. For some reason or another, his superiors decide that by sending him to an institute that puts him in a virtual-reality simulator which puts him in the body of a baboon, they can somehow rehabilitate him (huh?). The movie then moves like a roller-coaster, slowly beginning to pick up speed in its sheer low quality. Through some rather uncreatively thought out idea, he ends up stuck in virtual reality. The officials outside who are managing the computer tell him not to panic and to just stay calm and enjoy himself. When he begins to modify the program with his brain, however, they tell him to stop. At this point, the movie begins its spiral into gibbering insanity. He somehow or another begins accessing various systems around the world or something (it's never made clear exactly what the heck he, or anyone else, is doing), and some fat guy decides that he should die. I can't describe the rest for you, because none of it makes any sense and the whole thing is just one big unexplained paradox that makes you think it was made by a computer set to create a movie by randomly stitching together audios and visuals. At the end, however, it suddenly turns into a Japanese children's cartoon series when the main character yells "INTERFACE!", somehow "interfaces" (as is made clear enough by his shout) with the system, and the director decides to torment the audience with the following exchange:

Shot of main character's eyes surrounded by a swirling, pink whirlwind.

Shot of villain looking frightened.

Shot of main character's eyes, surrounded by a swirling, pink whirlwind.

Shot of villain looking frightened.

Shot of main character's eyes surrounded by a swirling, pink whirlwind.

Shot of villain looking frightened.

This agonizing little exchange continues until the villain dies, the star gets out of virtual reality, and, to top off this whole monstrosity, "gets the girl." After watching this movie, I walked into my bedroom, fell on my bed, and wept softly. I don't think this the memory bank was overdrawn. I think it went completely bankrupt.

Response From RinkWorks:

Ugh. This sounds like a cross between "Lawnmower Man" and a story I recently read in an SF magazine. Too bad I've never seen it for rent anywhere.


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