Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
It's a strange world, and working here at AICN with Knowles and his assorted band of lunatics has only made that point even more screamingly clear to me. Take Gregor Samsa, for example. He was a perfectly average film student at one point, but one day he awoke and found he had been transformed into a large cockroach... which is, admittedly, kinda groovy. Since then, he's been a valuable new spy for us, and this report is a perfect example of why. I was underwhelmed by the trailer for this film that premiered at ShoWest, but I'm curious to see why they felt the need to open it out to feature length. Remember, this started life as a short, as one third of an anthology film called ALIEN LOVE TRIANGLE. Evidently, Samsa was chased tonight by a guard with an electric fly swatter, trying to shock his ass. He just barely escaped to the safety of the Labs, where he filed this report...
hi drew,
Here’s the story on Impostor I promised…..it all began one foggy morning….
I scampered out of my cardboard box only to find that someone had moved my house, along with me! Boy, was I surprised to see where I had been dropped off. ”RECEIVING: MIRAMAX” the sign said. Hmm... I wondered how in god’s name I, of all movie critic roaches, ended up in receiving at Miramax. After I got my bearings straight, I set off to look for a gold mine of unseen movies just waiting to be devoured. Along my way I stumbled across a filed VHS tape with “Impostor” emblazoned across its label. So I figured I’d take a look, which brings me to the goods I’ve promised.
After a brief montage effects sequence explaining the history of this science fiction saga we are introduced to Gary Sinise’s character, Dr. Spencer Olham. It is the year 2079. We are a world economy ruled by a quasi-dictatorship. We are under constant attack from Alpha Centauri’s, an alien race bound and determined to destroy mankind. This is all based on a book (that I must admit I have never had the pleasure of reading) of the same name by acclaimed author Philip K. Dick of Blade Runner fame. Sounds great. Well, it's not great. It's OK.
Dr. Spencer Olham is apparently in charge of engineering a giant missile that is set to be something like Earth’s last chance at destroying the opposition. His wife, played by Madeline Stowe, works as a medical doctor. They both are at the top of their respective fields.
Now the hook of this movie enters with Vincent D’Onofrio’s Agent Hathaway, a cutthroat do-anything-for-the-greater-good CIA type, who nabs Spencer and tortures him and tells him he is a genetic time bomb and that he is not who he thinks he is, yada yada yada. So he screws up and Spencer gets away, a la The Fugitve.
So now what we have is a Fugitive rehash, only in the future. In The Fugitive we had Harrison Ford trying to prove he didn’t kill his wife all the while being dutifully chased around by Tommy Lee Jones. In Impostor we have Gary Sinise trying to prove he is not a time bomb all the while being dutifully chased around by Vincent D’Onofrio. But the movie is not a remake or anything... it’s just the same plot line with a couple of twists that at least separate it slightly.
Now once I’d realized that this movie wasn’t really going to break any new ground, I thought that I should at least peek around the offices a little more to see if I could find anything. But since roaches don’t exactly blend well with white tile in high traffic areas, I thought I might wait for a more secure method of transit, or at least until nightfall. Back to the movie.
Spencer meets up with some rag tags that help him out. He does everything he can to try and prove he’s not an alien bomb. Eventually Agent Hathaway catches up with him, a standoff ensues... and no more spoiling from me. Sorry. After viewing this film I was left with a few feelings. First, that Gary Sinise kicks major ass, loved him. Second, this movie is NOT BLADE RUNNER. And third, this movie would go better as an hour long OUTER LIMITS episode, not a feature film that costs eight bucks for any human being to see (being a roach is great for ticket prices). So my recommendation is to skip this one. See it on DVD when you’ve got a couple hours to kill.
As for me, I had to hide out in the garbage can until a janitor hefted me along to a nice cozy dumpster. Mmmm. Dumpster.
