Trancers
3 finds future cop Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) working as a private eye in 1992. He’s struggling to balance work with his
crumbling marriage when a cyborg named Shark (Leatherface’s R.A. Mihailoff) shows
up to bring him 250 years into the future.
They go to see Jack’s boss, Harris (Stephen Macht) who orders him to go
back to 2005 to stop the ridiculously named “Daddy Muthuh” (Andrew Robinson)
from creating Trancers.
The early scenes of Thomerson tripping through time work for the most part. His detached world-weariness is funny, and the
film gets a lot of mileage from his priceless reaction shots. Deth’s relationship woes with his estranged
wife (Helen Hunt) offer up the best moments in the movie (and make you wish
Hunt was in it more). However, whenever
Thomerson isn’t on screen, Trancers 3 suffers.
(It also doesn’t help that Deth spends most of the second act tied up.)
The
stuff with Robinson is far less entertaining. The scenes of him building his Trancer fighting
force is kind of dull. Making the
original crop of Trancers annoying army recruits was odd choice. None of them are really menacing and feel like
military grunts from an entirely different movie. The part when he tries to bang a Trancer is admittedly
amusing though.
While
Trancers 3 lacks the fun of the original, it’s more entertaining than Part 2. It has its moments, but never finds a
consistent rhythm. It sets up some good
ideas, and then doesn’t do much with them.
Consider the character of Shark. Giving
Thomerson a cyborg partner to bounce off of was an inspired choice. If they went further with the idea, it could’ve
made for a funny futuristic Buddy Cop movie.
However, their interactions are flat and fail to generate many laughs. Likewise, Thomerson’s final confrontation with
Robinson is disappointing. I like both
of those guys a lot. I just wish the
filmmakers made the most of their short screen time together.
AKA: Deth Lives.
AKA: Future Cop 3. AKA:
Trancers 2010. AKA: Trancers 3:
Deth Lives.
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