Will (J. Gregory Smith) is a guard/computer programmer in a virtual reality prison where inmates are kept in a state of perpetual virtual historical warfare. When the sleazy warden (Robert Davi) finds out he’s befriending the prisoners, he puts Will into the virtual reality simulator. He then pits Will in virtual combat against a bunch of rich fat cats who pay big money to hunt the prisoners in virtual reality.
The early scenes are the best. The opening sequence where Will is working the bugs out of a virtual reality fighting game held a lot of promise. Not only does it feature Debbie Rochon as the video game princess; we also have Matthias Hues as “Thor”, the video game villain. Shortly thereafter, there’s a great moment where Will is having sex with a big-boobed bimbo and his wife walks in to find him humping the couch while wearing his VR helmet. Sadly, it’s all downhill from there.
The rest of the film is a slow moving, dreary, bore. It haphazardly hops around from genre to genre, which makes it hard to get your bearings. Parts are like Tron, Lawnmower Man, The Most Dangerous Game, and Mortal Kombat. None of it ever really gels.
The early VR scenes are a heck of a lot more fun than all the historical battles and fights. The virtual warfare scenes take place during Vietnam, the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War, among others. (The Prohibition and western scenes are particularly draggy.) The lurching back and forth between time periods gets monotonous almost instantly. It often feels like the filmmakers just had a bunch of leftover props, costumes, and sets from other movies and tried to write a feature around what was available. Either that, or it was one of those deals where they filmed a television series where each time period made up an entire episode. Then, they realized they couldn’t sell it, and re-edited it into a feature. That would go a long way to explaining the completely unsatisfying cliffhanger ending.
Davi returned for the sequel, Absolute Aggression the following year. That flick might explain what the heck happened after the abrupt ending of this one. I’m not exactly itching to find out though.
AKA: Nexxus. AKA: Virtual Hell.
This film is pretty decent, though Absolute Aggression is superior.
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