Brainscan

Brainscan is what you should ask your doctor to perform if you find yourself tempted to buy a ticket to this flick. This latest entry in the virtual-reality/horror film genre is slow, dumb, dull and utterly pointless. Granted, that's true of the entire genre, but Brainscan is even more so – it can't even deliver at the crude level of a splatter movie. It's too smart to be simply gory, but not smart enough to be anything else.

Edward Furlong (the kid in Terminator 2) plays a depressed, nerdy teen who channels his grief about his mother's death into a morbid fascination with violent interactive video games. When he receives a CD-ROM from the Brainscan company, he finds himself entering a world of murder, one that has no clear division between fantasy and reality. Frank Langella (a good actor who should know better than to be in this movie) plays the homicide detective who dogs the kid's bloodstained trail.

The net result resembles heavy metal reworked by the Bee Gees. The only interesting part is its final message about how the kids need to get a life. The same could be said about its audience.