© William Ahearn 2006

Sometime in the future, when virtual reality is a deeper experience than it is now, law enforcement will create a training simulator for tracking and capturing the vilest serial criminals imaginable. The sim will be based on Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy and numerous other killers and the sim will mature and learn as it plays a virtual reality game with the trainees.

Sounds pretty cool so far and with a cast starring Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and Kelly Lynch it seemed a promising premise, even if it was being directed by the same person who directed "The Lawnmower Man."

The same computer lab apparently also makes a new humanoid android although no droids make an appearence anywhere else in the flick. It doesn't take a Steve Wozniak to figure out where this is going and where it might end.

Since there is some physical and mental danger to playing the game against the super criminal virtual reality killer, convicts are used to test the game. And here is where this flick's troubles begin. One of those felons, Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington), a former police detective, is in jail for killing the serial killer who killed Barnes' wife and young daughter and that serial killer has been programmed into the killer sim (Russell Crowe). The killer sim's computer profile is injected into a droid and escapes from the lab and Barnes -- of course -- has to pursue him with the help of the lab's pyschologist who has a young daughter.

Throw in some car chases, some shoot outs, some double-dealing suits and a promised pardon, and you can name this tune in five notes. And remember, bust the monitor and the computer with all the silly graphics dies.

There is one clever catch. The digital serial killer trapped in the body of an android is killed by Barnes. Perhaps "killed" is too drastic a term. Barnes pops the personality module out of the android. Unfortunately, only the killer knows where the psychologist's daughter is being held. Since the sim can't tell real life from the game (sound familar?) they pop the personality module back into the game to convince the killer he's still "alive" and to find the child.

The one interesting touch in this flick is just a tossed off ending.