Director: Josef Rusnak Writer: Daniel F Galouye (Novel "Simulacron 3"); Josef Rusnak & Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez Douglas Hall: Craig Bierko ("Long Kiss Goodnight") Hannon Fuller: Armin Mueller-Stahl ("Shine", "The X-Files Movie") Jane Fuller: Gretchen Mol ("Celebrity", "Rounders") Whitney/Ashton: Vincent D'Onofrio ("Men in Black", "Ed Wood", "Full Metal Jacket")

The year is 1999 and Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl), together with Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko) and Whitney (Vincent D'Onofrio), are experimenting with a very sophisticated game of virtual reality. They have re-created 1937 Los Angeles complete with cyborgs who can think and act totally independently and who believe that they are fully human. They are on the verge of perfecting a process which allows someone to download into a character created in their physical likeness and experience first hand the world of LA in 1937.

Fuller tests the process, discovers a fatal flaw, leaves a message for Hall in 1937, and returns to the present only to be murdered. Thus begins the hunt for a murderer across time and across reality.

I love sci-fi and went to this film with great expectations, most of which the film failed to fulfil. It looks good, with some effective cinematography suggestive of the world of virtual reality. LA in 1937 was stylish and tempting enough to make me want to spend more time there. Craig Bierko, who played Dave Lester* of "Red Dwarf" in 1992, is Douglas Hall, the friend and colleague of Fuller who is suspected, and indeed suspects himself, of murder. Gretchen Moll as Fuller's daughter Jane, is good to look at but I do wish I could see her in a role where she is more than a pretty face - you may have seen her previously in "Celebrity" and "Rounders". Her character is suggestive of the classic femme fatale so essential to film noir. Stahl and D'onofrio handle their roles well, however none of the characters are sufficiently developed to draw us in on the deeper emotional level, and there are times when there is too much talk and not enough action.

I enjoyed the complexity of the storyline - at one point I thought it was all too obvious but a clever twist caught me out. I also liked the way in which the film asks "What is Reality?", but...

OK for an escapist and pleasant enough adventure in cybespace, but it's not "Blade Runner".

(*In the original "Red Dwarf" TV series, Dave Lester was played by Craig Charles, who previously featured on ARTS alive)

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