Strange Days – Monday 5th January 2025

I remember when this film came out in the mid-1990’s. It seemed to be yet another sci-fi based on a ‘virtual reality’ type concept, but with no real Hollywood stars attached (Ralph Fiennes was not akin to any Hollywood A-lister at the time). The reviews weren’t good, and audiences seemed to give it a miss too, as did I.

Since then, it hasn’t really gained the cult following as much as other high concept movies from that time, such as ‘Dark City’ or even ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ (which I remember as being terrible). But, the calibre of the talent involved demands it be seen… eventually. I mean, written by James Cameron and directed by Kathryn Bigelow; that alone should be enough.

So, decades later, I finally sat down to watch it. It starts off great, with the audience taking the perspective of a character committing a robbery, and then getting chased, like a first-person shooter. For a modern audience used to gaming, this is nothing special, but in the mid-90’s, taking the perspective of a character and seeing the world through his eyes, was very revolutionary. Again, ‘Virtual Reality’ was still a new concept, with massive headsets and crappy graphics, but we could all see where this was heading; with photo-real immersion being the goal. This film takes it one step further, proposing the idea that by the turn of the century, New Year's Eve 1999 to be precise, we’d have technology to actually experience the world not only through the eyes of others, but feel what they feel too (the fact that thirty years later, Meta and Apple still haven’t convinced consumers to adopt headsets and virtual reality, means that technology is still a million miles away!).

In the film, this technology is used mainly for illicit and pornographic experiences, and is illegal. The film’s protagonist, a former cop, is now the equivalent of a junkie drug dealer, dealing mini-discs which capture these illicit experiences.

The concepts detailed in the film are all very good, and you can absolutely imagine this technology existing someday. The film itself, however, isn’t very good. It just goes on and on, to the point where you lose interest, and even once the story is resolved, it still goes on!

Race relations between blacks and whites in L.A. are at dystopian levels, but if the male and female leads can get together, then maybe there’s hope? It comes out of nowhere and is the epitome of the tacked on ‘Hollywood ending’.

The film is just is too damn convoluted, with so many strands that could easily be streamlined, making for a shorter and more satisfying movie. It should have been a simple case of a guy stuck on his ex, and the incriminating evidence that finds its way to him, instead of all the other plots thrown in and blended together!

There’s just too much going on, with a lot of the action being wild goose chases that lead to nothing, and the characters just ending up back where they started. I mean, how many times does Ralph Fiennes’s character get thrown out of the club, lust for him to immediately go back into the club? Or how many times does the killer ‘not’ kill him, when he easily could have, just so he can have a stand-off with him at the end, where he inevitably loses.

It’s convoluted and illogical, both of which I can’t stand!

The characters aren’t great either. The protagonist, although a former cop, is weak and sleazy. His friend, the limo driving single-mother, is somehow an ass-kicking fighting expert that keeps rescuing him; it makes no sense! The protagonist should be the heroic one; that’s what we as an audience want to see, not some guy that has to be rescued all the time!

I could go on. It’s not a terrible movie, and is worth watching for a taste of that mid-90’s zeitgeist of where we thought the world was heading by the turn of the century. Unfortunately, we seem to be heading in a much darker direction...