Gee, Do You Think a Guy Directed This?

I'm not one to badmouth Michael Crichton and everything he's ever done just because he's been involved with or been the inspiration for some bad movies. I actually liked the movie "Congo" (with Tim Curry doing his best Peter Lorre and some of the funniest dialogue ever delivered by Delroy Lindo), and over time I have come to see "Jurassic Park" as more of Spielberg's fault for getting too excited playing with his big, loud toys and forgetting to add plot and character.

But let's face it, Crichton is one damn uneven writer and a lot of his stuff gets turned into Z-grade junk. Well, "Looker" isn't quite as bad as 1984's "Runaway" , but it's not nearly "Congo" either. One might want to point the finger squarely at Crichton the director, as he was at the helm of both "Runaway" and "Looker" , but the fact remains, he directed "Coma" too, and that film's problem was mostly its obvious script (By guess who?).

One of cinema's most underrated actors, the late James Coburn stars as a millionaire who has created computer images of his models to sell products, and then he allegedly has said models killed. Meanwhile, Joe Public becomes hypnotised by the ads themselves. At least I THINK that was the hair-brained plot Crichton wanted us to swallow. Albert Finney plays the hero, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who starts to realise that all of his best clients are mysteriously starting to kill themselves. Meanwhile, I'm thinking- Can You Get This on Atari?

It may have worked on paper (not likely) but this 1980 sci-fi thriller makes little sense, is technologically outdated, and worst of all is rather dreary. This film has an even less appealing view of modeling than "The Eyes of Laura Mars" , which despite being wholly predictable, at least had Faye Dunaway and Brad Dourif to its credit. The music score by Barry Devorzon is abominable as many 'cool' 80s scores were, but at least you can't say you'll ever get that Sue Saad (who?) title song out of your head. It may be annoying, but it sure is catchy.

The story has not only dated, but would never have worked in any era. It's true that the idea that plastic surgery is the source of evil may have worked back then but today you're likely to inspire laughter or sarcastic comments like 'Nooo, Really? You're joking!'. But that's the part of the film that actually makes sense.

***SPOILER WARNING***
What really doesn't make sense is that a company would invest so much money in artificial actors when real actors would've been so much cheaper. And you thought "Halloween III" came up with some dumb ideas. ***END SPOILER*** Don't even get me started on those ray guns. There are plenty of botched ideas here and like a lot of late 70s/early 80s sci-fi, the characters are detached, wholly unsympathetic.

The saving grace of this film, and it's proof that a guy directed it, is that it has some boobies. Lots in fact. Including "Partridge Family" member Susan Dey. Yummy. Coburn is wasted but tries hard (despite having the worst hairdo I've seen in a long time), Finney looks bored, the audience has left the building.

Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Crichton. Calling something Digital Matrix doesn't make it high-tech or cool, I mean, does Digital Matrix actually MEAN anything? Anyway, did I mention that Susan Dey gets naked? Come on everyone, get na-ked!