Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
If you have watched movies for any amount of time, as I’m sure most of have, you have undoubtedly heard the rumors that actor Val Kilmer is ‘difficult’. Be it fist fights with Tom Cruise on the set of ‘Top Gun’ or shoving matches with Joel Schumacher on the set of the putrid ‘Batman Forever’ or getting directors fired, Val has gotten himself a bit of nasty little rep. At least if you believe the rumors. But that’s the way it was back in the day. While I can’t possibly know for certain, I have a hard time believing that the new millennium Val Kilmer is giving anybody a hard time anymore. I’ve seen most of the movies that Mr. Kilmer has made recently and with the exception of ‘Felon’ the meticulous, hard working, driven actor that once used to give people fits doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Now Val is just giving out hugs, kisses and cashing checks. And making painfully mediocre movies. Like this movie ‘Hardwired’.
In the near future corporations have taken over everything. In an inspired and very creative opening sequence we see corporate logos stuck on everything from the Taj Mahal to the occasional elk roaming the African plains. The reality of the situation, not surprisingly, is that things are really screwed up with the haves having more and the nots having nothing. Nonetheless meet Luke Gibson (Cuba Gooding Jr.) a hardworking cat married to the very lovely and very pregnant Veronica (Monica Mustelier) until a tragic car accident takes this away from him.
Luke would’ve died as well were it not for an experimental technology which attaches something that looks like a metal scorpion to your vertical cortex, designed by the monolithic Hope Industries, with this device fixing brain and spinal cord industries with the slight side effect that it erases your memories. The real design of this tech is to push advertising images through your brain. So essentially this technology, designed by Val Kilmer’s character of Doc Virgil, puts pop-up windows in your brain. Personally I can’t think of nothing that could possibly suck harder than that. But of course this technology is operating out of the legal limits of the law which we clearly can observe because when something goes wrong with this crazy new tech, the powers that be make the recipients head explode. Outstanding.
These evil cats would’ve exploded Luke’s dome as well, but Luke has some hackers on the inside working for him led by old and kindly Hal (Michael Ironside) who is working overtime to bring down Hope Industries. Usually this company uses homeless people as their test subjects because they won’t be missed but somewhere they screwed up, more or less, and used this family man… one who just so happens to be a super badass ex-special forces super badass. Wouldn’t you know it? Now Luke is mighty pissed off about these corporate clowns killing off the wife that he can’t remember and he is kicking ass and taking names… and he done run out of paper to take names on.
There’s nothing I found particularly wrong with ‘Hardwired’ with it being helped, at least from my vantage point, by the simple fact that I am a fan of sci-fi movies and action movies so with the two combined it’s pretty much a can’t miss for me. But the only thing that really separates this movie from say something that might show up on the SciFi Channel as one of their SciFi Channel originals is the presence of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Val Kilmer. Oh, it will still show up on that channel sometime down the line as a ‘SyFy Broadcast Premiere’ and when it does it will be right at home. With the exception of the rather nifty opening and the relatively well conceived storyline ‘Hardwired’ does very little to differentiate itself from the pack. We’ve seen Cuba play this same role before in almost all of his Straight to DVD offerings, and since he does this character so often he was more than functional as the badass with no memory, though he didn’t forget how to kick ass. I have no idea what Val Kilmer was doing in this movie other than sporting the world’s worst wig. I guess his presence was there to make sure this movie got made though I would’ve thought that Cuba should’ve been enough to guarantee this. I’m sure having Val Kilmer in a movie will get more people renting or buying this but they ain’t gonna see Val at his best, that’s for damn sure. Michael Ironside on the other hand… He seemed to be at his best. In fact director Ernie Barbarash probably would’ve been better served making old Darryl Revok the evil Dr. Virgil, because Darryl does have some experience blowing up peoples heads, and pulling Val out of the green screen room and actually giving him somebody to interact with.
Like I said, there’s noting particularly wrong with ‘Hardwired’ as it is average, functional entertainment. At best. It also set itself up with for a sequel with no less a luminary than Lance Henricksen as the heavy in the next go around. And while this was painfully mediocre, if they make ‘Hardwired 2’ I will be in the front of the line to watch it. It’s a sickness.
