Review: Vice

Set in the future where tech bigwig Julian (allegedly ‘played’ by Bruce Willis) owns a resort of-sorts called Vice, where humans can indulge in their basest, sickest urges on special humanoid androids. The androids have their memories wiped periodically, but Kelly (Ambyr Childers) seems to become self-aware after a violent incident triggers memories. This causes her to go on the run, before coming into contact with Evan (Bryan Greenberg) a morose widow with a past history with androids like Kelly. Meanwhile, a greasy-haired cop (played by Thomas Jane) has some serious issues with Vice, thinking that allowing people to indulge in their sickest fantasies on non-humans will only lead to other urges in ‘reality’. Don Patrick Harvey plays Jane’s boss, whilst Jonathon Schaech plays Julian’s chief henchman.

This review was originally posted before the announcement of Willis' illness/retirement and certain comments are obviously no longer relevant. Nonetheless I'd rather add these words than subtract anything, perhaps as a reminder that we don't know someone's personal circumstance.

I’m not sure how we ended up with Thomas Jane and Bruce Willis taking supporting roles in a C-grade rip off of the 70s sci-fi sequel “Futureworld”, but here we are with this 2015 direct-to-DVD offering from director Brian A. Miller (“The Prince”, “Caught in the Crossfire”- both terrible). Scripted by Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore (who collaborated with Miller on the stupid “The Prince”, which featured John Cusack, Jason Patric, and Bruce Willis), it’s not entirely awful, but boy is it a long way from being good and one of the two aforementioned actors puts in a bit more effort than the other.

Bruce Willis (in addition to being an apparent pain in Kevin Smith’s arse) doesn’t seem to bother giving a shit anymore, he just turns up for a pay check and that’s that. He’ll give you the bare minimum…if you’re lucky. And for the record, I’ve deleted a lot of angry, inflammatory stuff here directed at Willis, so this is the kinder, gentler version you’re ultimately reading. Completely miscast as a techie billionaire villain (after already being miscast and unimpressive in Miller’s “The Prince”), he doesn’t so much look like a guy who would rather be somewhere else, he looks as though he has mentally and emotionally checked out before turning up on set. A joyless Bruce is seemingly giving less than zero effort, and is shamefully non-committal. He’s not very good at playing bad guys, but he’s not even looking like he’s remotely trying to, either. Thomas Jane isn’t good but at least tries to look like he’s not slumming, though if you’ve ever thought he looked like Christopher Lambert before this movie will be a weird experience for you. For a second there I thought I was watching Lambert in the infamous “Adrenalin: Fear the Rush”. For me the only thing stopping this from being a 90s Albert Pyun flick somehow co-starring 90s era Christopher Lambert and 2015 Bruce Willis is that it’s been reasonably competently made on a technical level, despite too many lens flares for my liking. Jonathon Schaech (who was one of the better things about “The Prince”) is wooden as hell, also adding to the glut of former ‘somebodies’ who are now slumming it in the direct-to-DVD/On Demand market. How in the hell did we get to this point? I mean, while this film was being made I wouldn’t be surprised if there were two other films of this ilk being made, with some combination of Robert De Niro, John Travolta, John Cusack, Nic Cage, and Jason Patric. Something is broken in Hollywood, if you ask me (though Nic Cage was appearing in shit well before this current crop of films, so perhaps his descent into this situation makes sense).  Lesser-known lead actors Ambyr Childers and Bryan Greenberg are incredibly mopey and dull.

It’s clearly not an original story, in addition to the “Futureworld” plot, it even has the bit from “Demolition Man” where someone has been programmed to be unable to kill the villain. However it does have one thing over the recent TV series version of “Westworld” in that this film’s story didn’t try my patience to the point where I gave up on it (And if it weren’t for a perfect Ed Harris, I probably wouldn’t have made it past the first two episodes of that overrated show, to be honest). So it’s competent enough to earn a few points I suppose. It’s just not very inspired, well-acted, or much of anything at all. Although it’s by default Miller’s best film to date (though I haven’t seen “House of the Rising Sun” yet), no one looks to be having fun, and I doubt viewers will, either.

Rating: C