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By Robert Scucci
| Published
Here’s the advice that I’ll keep screaming from the mountaintops until I’m blue in the face: any sci-fi thriller from the ’90s that has a punishing critical score on Rotten Tomatoes is probably way better than its reputation suggests because critics back then didn’t know how to have fun. 1995’s Virtuosity caught my eye on Tubi, and it gets by on star power alone, with Denzel Washington pitted against a comically menacing Russell Crowe. That’s enough to make any movie lover want to watch it. But then I saw its 30 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, followed by its not-much-better audience score of 32 percent.
This is one of those “hate to say I told you so” moments, but here it comes anyway: Virtuosity is needlessly over the top, makes no scientific sense whatsoever, and, as the kids would say, is absolutely dripping with rizz. So much so, in fact, that calling it over the top and completely nonsensical isn’t a criticism. This whole thing plays like a satire, and if you don’t go into it respecting its campiness, you’ll probably agree with critics and audiences alike.
If you go into this film with an open mind, and primed to be fully entertained by Washington’s dead seriousness coupled with Crowe chewing every scene he’s in like a beaver who just recovered from jaw surgery, then you’re going to have one hell of a time watching Virtuosity.
The Ole Sexbot Switcheroo
I don’t even really want to get into the nitty-gritty of Virtuosity’s science because the less you know about it, the better. The rules are beyond silly, and to the film’s credit, it just lets them not make sense, trading hard science for pure entertainment value.
The plot centers on Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington), an LAPD officer turned prison inmate after revenge-killing terrorist Matthew Grimes (Christopher Murray), who murdered his wife and daughter. In the ensuing shootout, he also killed two innocent bystanders. He now spends his days testing an experimental police technology known as SID (Sadistic, Intelligent, Dangerous), which trains officers to hunt artificial intelligence antagonists whose personalities are sourced from a laundry list of infamous serial killers. I know, it’s insane, but it gets even crazier in a minute.
After a botched training exercise involving a virtual killer named SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe) results in the death of a fellow inmate, the SID program is set to be terminated. The project’s head programmer, Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer (Stephen Spinella), worries that he’ll never complete his work, so he tricks his employee Clyde (Kevin J. O’Connor) into activating one of the female personalities, Sheila 3.2, inside a fully operational android body. What Clyde doesn’t know is that he’s not about to get freaky with a psychologically unhinged robot. Instead, he’s being manipulated into bringing the 6.7 model to life, who promptly trashes the lab and embarks on a real-world rampage.
SID 6.7, when fully suited up, has healing powers not unlike the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Daybut he can only heal when he rubs up against glass. SID 6.7’s mind also channels data from Matthew Grimes and uses that knowledge to taunt Parker into playing dirty with him.
Parker is told by LAPD Chief William Cochran (William Forsythe) that if he successfully apprehends SID 6.7, he’ll receive a full pardon. However, he first needs to undergo a psychological evaluation with the partner being forced upon him as part of the arrangement: Dr. Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch), an expert in criminal psychology.
Pure Popcorn Insanity
Once Virtuosity establishes its major players, it becomes an all-out free-for-all in the most unhinged way possible. Russell Crowe wasn’t yet a household name, and you can tell he was hungry, using every opportunity to dial his charisma to 11. His delivery reminds me of Butters from South Park when he’s transitioning into Professor Chaos, except there’s no cute sense of naivety here. The cackling, over-annunciating, and body language are all so extra, but they work shockingly well in this context. He’s the perfect “movie psycho,” if that makes sense. No real person acts like this, but I don’t want to watch real people here.
Denzel Washington’s willingness to play everything straight only amplifies Crowe’s exuberance, making every exchange they share feel bigger and more animated. You’ll have so much fun watching Virtuosity that you won’t even mind that our villain’s interactions with broken glass are wildly inconsistent, or that this entire mess started because a scientist tricked another scientist into thinking he was activating a sex bot for research purposes.
Fortunately, Virtuosity doesn’t undermine itself with its own junk science because it quickly lays out the rules and gets the hell out of the way so we can watch stuff blow up in retro-futuristic fashion. Criminal psychology is bogus in that “let’s rattle off a bunch of serial killer names and use jargon to sound smart” way that movies like this love, but it’s never enough to take you out of the picture.
Virtuosity succeeds as a fun action thriller because it sticks to the one golden rule that actually matters: don’t overexplain things. Things just happen in Virtuosityand you just have to roll with them. Sometimes that’s all you need. This isn’t, wasn’t, and never will be award-winning material, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s meant to be fun, quotable, and visually enthralling entertainment, and I wish they still made more movies like this.
As of this writing, you can stream Virtuosity for free on Tubi.
