I really don't know where I first came across this. I was probably drunk and fooling around on Netflix, and added it to my queue because the cover had Lorenzo Lamas, then was shocked when it showed up on my doorstep, wondering when in the hell I could've put that one in. Then it was like "well, since I have it, I might as well watch it."
Terminal Justice aka Cybertech PD has Lorenzo Lamas rocking blue contacts in the year 2008. If that doesn't sound ridiculous enough, this so-called future we just lived through last year has virtual reality sex as it's big thing. Sorry Wii, you just weren't cool enough. Anyway, this one chick is a great virtual reality sex star, and Chris Sarandon wants her blood so he can clone her. The only thing better than Virtual reality sex, is sex with a clone. Lamas isn't a fan of Sarandon anyway, and when he and this sex star fall in love, he's all about protecting her and bringing him down.
Wow. Why? How long was it? Really, not three hours? This movie was hardcore. I knew it when I saw Lamas' eyes. Why would you do that? He looks like a moron with blue contacts. And did the people who made it stop to consider for one second what 1982 was like compared to 1995? Yeah, there were some great advancements in technology, but enough to make them think that from 1995 to 2008 we'd invent something that acts like the holodeck on Star Trek? Or that our entertainment industry would change so drastically that it would fail to resemble the one that existed before? If this had been silly enough, I would've ignored all that, but I just couldn't get past Lamas' eyes.
And with that, this film also surpasses Succubus: Hell Bent as Lamas' worst. In that one, he was barely in the film for more than five minutes, which was why I rank it so poorly. This one he was in plenty, but he was never really in it with those blue contacts. The idea was supposed to be he had his eyes removed by some baddies in the Russian Cartel Wars (they never show that, which is good), and they're replaced by cybernetic ones that act like cameras and can see things in infrared and whatnot. Again, technology we picked up from 1995 to 2008. Right. What a waste of Lamas this was. His only great moment came when he had flashbacks to his time in the war, where he'd freak out on this drug called Hellraiser. That was hilarious.
It is a weird thing to be 8 years beyond the year 2000, considering before it there was this idea that the world was going to be so different after it. It was like the difference between 1999 and 2000 was a hundred years. Okay, so maybe most of us didn't really think that, and were much more pragmatic, but plenty of sci-fi film makers did. It looks so ridiculous now. I mean, I'm not expecting them to have predicted the iPod, but a little more creativity beyond simply Virtual Reality sex isn't too much to ask. I also don't understand why they put these false constraints on themselves with futures that aren't that far in the future. Bump it up thirty years, and it'll be at least a little more believable.
I couldn't decide whether to devote this paragraph to Kari Wuher or Peter Coyote, both DTV movie veterans that both star in this film. I took a different route, choosing to talk instead about Tod Thaley, who plays Lamas' partner after his first one dies. This guy wasn't too bad of an actor, and from what I could tell, he usually plays Native Americans, while in this movie he played an Japanese American. Of course, when I say not too bad of an actor, remember that it's in the context of a mid-90s Lorenzo Lamas sci-fi actioner.
Finally, I cannot in good conscience discuss this film without mentioning the hilarious remote control helicopter with a gun that chased Lamas because it was trained to track his pheromones. How this scene wasn't cut the moment after it was shot is beyond me. It was so ridiculous. This was almost as funny as Freddy's hand running around in Wes Craven's A New Nightmare. And then Lamas sprays himself in Lysol to mask his scent. Good thinking. He's a resourceful hero. Too bad he didn't have a more resourceful agent, huh?
Stay as far away as you can from this. I mean it. It hurt. It's got Lamas in it. So what? He's got blue eyes which make him look silly. After that this sack-of-asscrack has nothing going for it. If you need a Lamas fix, rent Renegade on DVD.
For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114648/
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