''Virtuosity'' is a 1995 American

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

action film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

directed by

Brett Leonard Brett Leonard (born May 14, 1959) is an American film director, producer and music video Music video director, director specializing in the science fiction and Horror (genre), horror genres. A few of his films such as ''The Lawnmower Man (film ...

and starring

Denzel Washington Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles Denzel Washington on screen and stage, on stage and screen, Washington has received List of awards and nominations ...

and Russell Crowe. Howard W. Koch Jr. served as an executive producer for the film. The film was released in the United States on August 4, 1995. ''Virtuosity'' had an estimated budget of $30 million and grossed $37 million worldwide.

Plot

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, Parker Barnes is a former police officer imprisoned for killing political terrorist Matthew Grimes, who killed Parker's wife and daughter. Barnes killed Grimes but also accidentally shot two news reporters in the process and was sentenced to 17 years to life. In the year 1999, Barnes and John Donovan are testing a virtual reality system designed for training police officers. The two are tracking down a serial killer named SID 6.7 at a Japanese

sushi is a traditional Japanese dish made with , typically seasoned with sugar and salt, and combined with a variety of , such as seafood, vegetables, or meat: raw seafood is the most common, although some may be cooked. While sushi comes in n ...

restaurant in

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

. SID (short for Sadistic, Intelligent, Dangerous, a VR amalgam of the most violent serial killers throughout history) causes Donovan to go into shock, killing him. The director overseeing the project orders the programmer in charge of creating SID, Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer, to shut down the project with Commissioner Elizabeth Deane and her associate, William Wallace, as his witnesses. Following a fight with another prisoner, Big Red, Barnes meets with criminal psychologist Dr. Madison Carter. Meanwhile, Lindenmeyer informs SID that he is about to be shut down because Donovan's death was caused when SID disabled the fail-safes. At SID's suggestion, Lindenmeyer convinces another employee, Clyde Reilly, that a sexually-compliant virtual reality model, Sheila 3.2, another project created by Lindenmeyer, can be brought to life in a synthetically grown android body. However, Lindenmeyer replaces the Sheila 3.2 module with the SID 6.7 module. Now processed into the real world, SID 6.7 kills Reilly. Once word gets out of SID being in the real world, Deane and LAPD Chief William Cochran offer Barnes a deal: if he catches SID and brings him back to virtual reality, he will be pardoned. Barnes agrees, and with help from Carter they discover that Matthew Grimes, the terrorist who killed Barnes's wife and daughter, is a part of SID 6.7's personality profile. After killing a family along with a group of security guards, SID heads over to the Media Zone, a local nightclub, where he takes hostages. Barnes and Carter go to the nightclub to stop him, but SID escapes. The next day, SID begins a killing spree at the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium where a UFC match is taking place. Barnes arrives at the Stadium to capture SID, and finds him on a

train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

, where another hostage is being held by SID. Barnes seemingly kills the hostage in front of horrified witnesses and is sent back to prison. Having caught up with Barnes after the incident, Carter tries to prove Barnes's innocence, but Barnes is freed from his prisoner transport by SID, who once again escapes. Wallace and Deane are about to have Barnes terminated via a fail-safe transmitter implanted in his body but Cochran destroys the system after learning from Carter that Barnes didn't kill the hostage on the train. SID kidnaps Carter's daughter Karin and takes over a television studio. Lindenmeyer, having come out of hiding, sees what SID is doing and is impressed, but is captured by Carter. After a fight on the roof of the studio Barnes ultimately destroys SID's body but is unable to learn where he hid Karin. They place SID back in VR to trick the location out of him which proves to be one of the fan enclosures on the studio roof. When SID discovers that he is back in virtual reality he goes into a rage. Cochran lets Carter out of VR, but Lindenmeyer kills Cochran before he can release Barnes. Barnes starts to go into the same shock that Donovan suffered, but Carter kills Lindenmeyer, and saves Barnes. Barnes and Carter return to the building that SID took over in the real world and save Karin from a booby trap set up by SID that's similar to the one that killed Barnes' family. After Karin is saved, Barnes destroys the SID 6.7 module.

Cast

as Lieutenant Parker Barnes, who was imprisoned after killing a man who killed his family * Russell Crowe as SID 6.7, a virtual reality entity who later becomes a regenerating android * Kelly Lynch as Dr. Madison Carter, a criminal psychologist who teams with Barnes to understand SID's behavior * Stephen Spinella as Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer, who created SID 6.7 and Sheila 3.2 * William Forsythe as Chief Billy Cochran *

Louise Fletcher Estelle Louise Fletcher (July 22, 1934 – September 23, 2022) was an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of the antagonist Nurse Ratched in the film '' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1975), which earned her numero ...

as Commissioner Elizabeth Deane * William Fichtner as William Wallace * Costas Mandylor as John Donovan * Kevin J. O'Connor as Clyde Reilly * Kaley Cuoco as Karin Carter, Madison's daughter * Christopher Murray as Matthew Grimes * Mari Morrow as Linda Barnes * Johnny Kim as Lab Tech * Heidi Schanz as Sheila 3.2 *

Traci Lords Traci Elizabeth Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma; May 7, 1968) is an American actress and singer. As a 15-year-old high-school dropout, she used Identity document forgery, fake identity documents to enter the sex industry, where she began appearin ...

as Media Zone singer * Gordon Jennison Noice as 'Big Red' *

Michael Buffer Michael Buffer (born November 2, 1944) is an American ring announcer (or " MC") for boxing, professional wrestling, and National Football League events. Pioneering a distinct announcing style in which he rolls certain letters and adds other ...

as Emcee

Production

After the success of '' The Lawnmower Man'', director

received a number of

Virtual Reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

-based scripts as potential follow-ups with Leonard rejecting them as they weren't very good and were overly reliant upon

cybersex Cybersex, also called Internet sex, computer sex, netsex, e-sex, cybering, is a virtual sex encounter in which two or more people have long distance sex via electronic video communication (webcams, VR headsets, etc.) and other electronics (such as ...

which he didn't feel could sustain an entire movie. What attracted Leonard to the ''Virtuosity'' script was the fact it wasn't overly focused or reliant on Virtual Reality and would allow him to focus more on action elements and concepts of

Nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

. Screenwriter Eric Bernt said the inspiration for SID 6.7 came from a trip to

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

and learned about the institutions

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

research, citing in particular Joseph Bates' demonstration of ''The Oz Project: Woggles'' which featured several spherical Pac-Man like creatures moving around a three-dimensional space and interacting with other "woggles" using a preset array of 20 different emotions with the goal being to incorporate more human characteristics. This served as the foundation for Brent's central concept in which SID 6.7 would be an Artificial Intelligence for use in a

Criminal Investigation Criminal investigation is an applied science that involves the study of facts that are then used to inform criminal trials. A complete criminal investigation can include Search and seizure, searching, interviews, interrogations, Evidence (law), ...

simulation A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in ...

for training police only for SID's intelligence to drive him to look for a way out of Virtual Reality. In regards to Stephen Spinella as SID's creator Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer, Brent compared him to Dr. Frankenstein in that he's obsessed with protecting his creation regardless of the consequences. Washington restructured much of the story and dialogue during filming, entirely removing a romantic subtext between the Lt. Barnes and Dr. Carter characters from the original script. Principal photography for the film began on January 25, 1995. Parts of the film were filmed at the abandoned

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace company, aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes ...

plant in

Music

The soundtrack was released on MCA imprint Radioactive Records and contained music from

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and human rights activist. He came to prominence as the original frontman of the rock band Genesis. He left the band in 1975 and launched a solo career wit ...

, The Heads, Tricky and Live, among others. An album containing the complete score by Christopher Young was released on July 26, 2019 on Intrada Records. A promo CD had previously been released. Producer Gary Lucchesi hired Young after working with him previously on '' Jennifer 8''. Much of Young's score is electronic-influenced while the last third of the film utilizes an orchestra.

Reception

Critical response

The film received mostly mixed to negative reviews.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

, however, wrote that the movie was "filled with bright ideas and fresh thinking" and "still finds surprises" despite a somewhat clichéd premise. The film was nominated for Best Picture at the

Sitges Film Festival SITGES - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia () is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Catalonia, Spain. It specializes in fantasy film, fantasy, Horror film, horror and Cult film, cult films. Established in 1968, the festiva ...

, losing to '' Citizen X''.

Box office

The film grossed $24 million in the United States and Canada and $37 million worldwide.

Novelization

In 1995, a novelization of the film by author Terry Bisson was published by Pocket.

References

External links

* * {{Brett Leonard 1995 films 1990s chase films 1995 science fiction action films American chase films American science fiction action films 1990s English-language films Films about computing Films about telepresence Films about virtual reality Films directed by Brett Leonard Films produced by Gary Lucchesi Films scored by Christopher Young Films set in 1999 Films set in California Films set in Los Angeles American police detective films Paramount Pictures films 1990s American films 1995 science fiction films English-language science fiction action films English-language action thriller films