Scanners (*)
review by Jon Waterman

Big-time corporation ConSec wants to use, train and sell telepathic people (scanners) to the military for espionage purposes.  However, the scanners and their underground scanning organization don’t like this idea, so they start assassinating people.  ConSec finds a “good” scanner, Cameron Vale, to try to infiltrate the society and bring down the underground leader, Darryl Revok.

It sounds like a pretty cool idea for a movie while lots of potential.  After all, these telepaths aren’t just telepaths.  They’re scanners:  telepathy -- to the eXtreme!  I never got excited.  The movie moved too slowly and it was only 100 minutes long.  This would be one of the few times where I wish there was less plot and more mindless killing.

Time to blame:  Prime perpetrator – David Cronenberg wrote and directed this precursor to “What Women Want.”  I wish he would make more “Naked Lunch”es and fewer “The Fly”s.  He should of known that if you’re going to make a head explode, you should either save it for the climax, or have several of them.  Don’t blow your wad right off the bat.  He ended up having to make up for it by making stuff blow up in a way that doesn’t make sense.  Now, by the final scene, you’re pretty much just wanting it to be over despite the good special effects. Oh, and the dialogue was pretty dumb, especially at the end.

This movie was supposed to be plot driven actually, or so it seemed to me.  It was meant to deal a blow to us and make us think about the social consequences and injustices that come with isolating and using a culture different than ours.  I came out of it wanting more exploding heads.

What’s a movie without actors?  “Scanners.”  The two people who have gotten decent steady work since this movie are Lawrence Dane (who plays ConSec’s security head, Braedon Keller.  Bet you can’t guess his character motivation) and Michael Ironside (“Total Recall,” “V,” “Starship Troopers,” plays the evil Revok).  That tells you something.  The lead, Vale, is played by Stephen Lack (of talent).  Need I say more?

Howard Shore’s music was just a bit too overbearing.  Tone it down a little.  In general, all the sound was pretty poor quality.  And who’s idea was it to make the scanning noise a high-pitched tea kettle?

I just want to devote a paragraph to the “super computers” that were in the movie.  So easy to hack.  So easy to tell when this movie was made.  It was a nice blast to the past.

Digressions aside, if you’re looking for a gory sci-fi movie involving corruption in the corporate setting, then, please, watch “Robocop.”

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