A crowd of hipsters, punks and assorted nightclubbers whoop and holler
as they crowd around a teenaged nerd in a giant plastic helmet, cheering
him on as he gesticulates his way through what looks like the dullest
computer game in the world: Evolver, a VR shoot-em-up in which, apparently,
the aim is to slowly chase a crudely animated droid around a maze.
Yes, we’re in that giddy mid-Nineties period when the jerky polygons
of virtual reality were going to change entertainment forever, uniting
the warring youth tribes of the world in polygon-blasting awe.
The nerd immersed in the game is Kyle Baxter, and he’s chasing
the high score of 100,000 points. Topping this total will guarantee him
victory in the competition being run by the makers of Evolver. The prize?
A real-life Evolver robot to play against.
Unfortunately, Kyle’s winning streak is broken by the intrusion
of Jamie, a feisty minx, who blunders into his game and steals his vital
kill at the last second. Not to be deterred, and egged on by scheming
best mate Zach, Kyle simply uses his magic pre-internet movie computer
to hack into the company’s databanks (which takes all of two minutes)
and nudge his score up a notch.
With his victory guaranteed, Kyle sits back and waits for his prize.
Sure enough, he soon takes delivery of a nuts-and-bolts Evolver, the
prototype of the coolest new toy around. The designer of the robot explains
that the robot works just as it does in the VR game – you have
to shoot its targets with a harmless laser beam, and in turn Evolver
tries to tag you by firing soft pellets. Each time it’s defeated,
it evolves to the next level. There are four such levels, and nobody
has ever beaten the last setting.
Naturally, the robot turns out to be psychotic and evil – let’s
face it, it’d be an even worse movie if it wasn’t – as
it takes the “game” rather more seriously than intended.
Before long the school bully has been shot in the eye with a ball bearing
and shoved down some stairs to his death, poor old Zach has been crushed
underneath a car, two stoned buffoons have been fried while playing the
VR game and even Kyle’s little sister has almost been knifed and
electrocuted in the family swimming pool.
Realising that these sorts of glitches should probably be covered by
the manufacturer’s warranty, Kyle calls in Evolver’s designer
who is all apologies. He carts off the deactivated droid, but Evolver
isn’t going down without a fight. It reboots itself, forces the
van to crash and incinerates the whole lot – creator included – before
heading back to the Baxter homestead for the final level.
Holding Kyle’s mother and sister hostage by somehow cobbling together
a laser cage from household items, Evolver battles Kyle to the death – though
our plucky teen hero calls in a little help from feisty Jamie. Kyle plants
a laser blast on Evolver’s target, winning the game fair and square.
Unable to cope with the concept of losing, Evolver breaks down and Kyle
gives it a good few smacks with a baseball bat for good measure.
Think that’ll be enough to destroy a killer robot in a dumb horror
movie? Of course not. Evolver comes back yet again – proclaiming “bonus
round!” as the dubious reason for its miraculous resurrection.
This time Kyle turns its own laser weapons against Evolver, and the wretched
thing finally explodes into tiny pieces.
Now, you may have noticed that the name William H. Macy hasn’t
cropped up yet – and with good reason. He’s not actually
in the film, or at least not in any visible way. That’s right,
William H. Macy, star of such acclaimed hits as Fargo, Boogie Nights
and Magnolia, is the voice of Evolver the killer toy robot. And so, as
the rather stupid looking droid wobbles precariously after its prey on
its plastic wheels, you get to hear Macy (credited rather coyly here
as W.H. Macy) utter such classic computerised dialogue as “Delete
this!” and “Game not over!”
The final shot, in predictable crap movie style, suggests that Evolver
may yet rise again – “Kill not confirmed” reads the
flickering screen - though as it’s been reduced to a small piece
of glowing plastic by this point, it’s hardly the most ominous
ending in cinema history. Needless to say, a second reboot never happened.
Need to know: Writer and director Mark Rosman started his career with
the grisly slasher The House on Sorority Row, but more recently brought
us fluffy teen romcoms such as A Cinderella Story and The Perfect Man.
Evolver itself was created by special effects man Steve Johnson, whose
credits include working as a puppeteer on Freaked (see: Keanu Reeves)
and more recently such big budget fare as Spider-Man 2 and Spielberg’s
War Of The Worlds, for which he created dozens of dead bodies. Nice.
Availability: A DVD of Evolver is out in the US, but the VHS rental market
was as close as it got to a UK release.
