Unfairly Overlooked, IR-Kalwe 90s Sci-Fi Thriller Is An Uncensored Take on AI
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
Here's a piece of advice to keep shouting from the mountaintops until I'm blue in the face: any sci-fi thriller from the '90s with a punishing critical score on Rotten Tomatoes is probably better than its reputation suggests because the critics of the time didn't know how to entertain. In 1995 Beauty I caught my eye on Tubi, and it's going through star power alone, with Denzel Washington pitted against the formidable Russell Crowe. That's enough to make any movie lover want to watch it. But then I saw its critical score of 30 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, followed by its not-so-good audience score of 32 percent.
This is one of those “hate to say I told you so” moments, but here it comes anyway: Beauty it's unnecessarily superficial, makes no scientific sense, and, as the kids would say, absolutely drips the rizz. So much so, in fact, that calling it loud and completely absurd is not a criticism. The whole thing plays like a satire, and if you don't go into it with respect for its camp, you'll likely agree with critics and audiences alike.
If you go into this film with an open mind, and enjoy being fully entertained by the earnestness of Washington with Crowe chewing all over his surroundings like a beaver who has just had jaw surgery, then you will have one hell of a watch. Beauty.
Ole Sexbot Switcherrooo
I don't even want to get into the nitty-gritty Virtuosity's science because the less you know about it, the better. The rules are beyond silly, and to the film's credit, it just lets them make no sense, trading in hard science for pure entertainment value.
The plot focuses on Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington), an LAPD officer who became a prisoner after the revenge of terrorist Matthew Grimes (Christopher Murray), who killed his wife and daughter. In the ensuing shootout, he killed two more innocent people. He now spends his days testing police surveillance technology known as SID (Sadistic, Intelligent, Dangerous), which trains officers to hunt down artificial intelligence opponents whose personalities can be found on the wardrobes of famous serial killers. I know, it's crazy, but it's getting crazier by the minute.
After a botched training involving a virtual killer named SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe) results in the death of a fellow inmate, the SID program will be terminated. The main program manager of the project, Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer (Stephen Spinella), worried that he will never finish his job, so he tricks his employee Clyde (Kevin J. O'Connor) into launching one of the women, Sheila 3.2, inside a fully functional android body. Can Clyde know that he has never been obsessed with a robot that has not been mentally stimulated. Instead, he is tricked into bringing the 6.7 model to life, who promptly abandons the lab and begins an attack on the real world.
SID 6.7, when fully qualified, has healing power unlike T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Daybut he can heal only when he rubs the glass. SID 6.7's mind also relays data from Matthew Grimes and uses that information to trick Parker into playing dirty with him.
Parker is told by LAPD Chief William Cochran (William Forsythe) that if he successfully catches SID 6.7, he will receive a full pardon. However, he first needs to undergo a psychological evaluation with a partner forced upon him as part of the program: Dr. Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch), a forensic scientist.
Pure Popcorn Insanity
Once Beauty establishes its main players, becoming free-out-for-all in the most consistent way possible. Russell Crowe was not yet a household name, and you could tell he was hungry, using every opportunity to dial his charisma to 11. His delivery reminds me of Butters from South Park when he switches to Professor Chaos, except there's no good sense of ignorance here. Cackling, excessive pronunciation, and body language are all added, but they work shockingly well in this context. He is a complete “movie psycho”, if that makes sense. No real person does this, but I don't want to look at real people here.
Denzel Washington's willingness to play everything straight only heightens Crowe's excitement, making every exchange they share feel bigger and more animated. You will have a lot of fun watching Beauty that you won't even have to worry that our villain's interaction with broken glass is incredibly inconsistent, or that the whole mess started because a scientist tricked another scientist into thinking he was using a sex bot for research purposes.
Fortunately, Beauty it doesn't downplay its science fiction because it quickly lays down the rules and gets the hell out of the way so we can watch things explode in retro-futuristic fashion. Criminal Minds is a fake “let's rattle off a bunch of serial killer names and use jargon to sound smart” kind of movies like this romance, but it's not enough to get you out of the picture.
Beauty succeeds as an action thriller because it sticks to one important rule: don't overexplain things. Things just happen Beautyand you just have to roll with them. Sometimes that's all you need. This is not, was not, and will never be an award winning thing, but it doesn't have to be. It's meant to be fun, edgy, and charming, and I wish they made more movies like this.
From this writing, you can broadcast Beauty free on Tubi.
