Another in an unending series of "MAN" movies (HOLOGRAM MAN, CIRCUITRY MAN) inspired by the success of ROBOCOP, DIGITAL MAN is constructed and directed like a video game for the big screen. Acted by workout addicts, the titular action roles are suitable for lumbering actors who have
greater affinity for flexing than acting.
When terrorists threaten to obliterate hostages unless they're given safe passage and a lot of money for the 250 nuclear launch codes they have stolen, Delta Base Captain West (Adam Baldwin) doesn't check with his superiors but defeats the criminal conspiracy by sending out a brand new secret
weapon, Digital Man (Matthias Hues). After cleaning up a messy situation, the not-quite-test-approved robotic secures the nuclear launch codes but becomes a loose cannon after an EVAC technician (Clint Howard) deprograms him off course.
Back at the base, General Roberts (Ed Lauter) and Dr. Parker (Paul Gleason) act suspiciously nervous about the mechanical man's automatic downloading of his data; a squadron is sent to secure and deactivate the digital creature, whose self-preservation instincts are fully functional. Meanwhile, at
a dust bowl town, Digital Man inadvertently terrorizes the locals while trying to complete an uplinking.
Although beset with casualties, the commandos damage Digital Man sufficiently to obtain his disc codes. After slaying West, his partner, Parker, and others aboard an EVAC ship, power-mad General Roberts lands in the desert for the express purpose of seizing the launch codes for his own purposes.
Forcing his ground troops' survivors, Anders (Ken Olandt) and Gena (Kristen Dalton), to surrender the encoded disc, General Roberts is no match for Mildred Hodges (Susan Tyrrell), one of the desert townies who has been allergic to the military since it turned their area into a ghost community.
After Mildred stops the General with a bullet, Anders and Gena ensure that the launch codes are safely out of the hands of the General and any co-conspirators.
Not since the equally eccentric CIRCUITRY MAN 2 (1994) have there been so many paper-thin characters rattling around so many underwritten subplots. It's an action picture whose story lines declare war on one another, and the viewer isn't sure whether to concentrate on the military paranoiacs, the
electronic monster, macho men and babes in space, or the local yokels as they strike back. Of all the tangled story threads in this sci-fi gumbo, none is as irritating as the saga of the country bumpkins shrieking in terror as the hulking digital lummox walks among them. Science-fiction buffs
prefer to see their specialized genre treated with a vestige of dignity, and watching the "Revenge of Trailer Trash" does not qualify. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity.) leave a comment
