An excellent example of plagiarist cinema, HOLOGRAM MAN is a fast-paced action film outclassed by the more distinctive films (ROBOCOP, DEMOLITION MAN) it is inspired by.
In the future, Los Angeles is a police state run by crooked corporate mogul Edward Jameson (Michael Nouri). When a revolutionary/criminal Slash Gallagher (Evan Lurie) is nabbed after embarking on killing sprees at several police precincts, the government reduces his body to a hologramatic state
while awaiting his parole hearings. Righteous cop Decoda (Joe Lara), who thought Slash should have been executed to save the taxpayers' money, is outraged to find that Slash has become the beneficiary of a techno-nerd, Manny (William Sanderson), who enables Slash to escape incarceration in
half-human/half-hologram form.
Suddenly Jameson's empire starts crumbling due to Slash's newfound immunity to standard police arrest techniques. Ace tracker Decoda fails to stop Slash and his cronies from robbing a bank and then wiping out city council members. In his polymer suit, Slash bursts into Jameson's corporate
laboratories, slays top scientist Dr. Stern (Joseph Campanella), and turns Decoda to swiss cheese. Luckily, the scientist's daughter decides in a flash to extend Decoda's waning life expectancy by transforming him into a second hologram-man. After the ungrateful Slash slays Manny and captures
Jameson, Decoda arrives for a showdown while Slash's men keep the cops busy. Using a lab computer, Decoda is able to send Slash back into a manageable cyber-state from which he's annihilated in a hologram transformer tube. Afterwards, Decoda kills corrupt Jameson and vows to continue his
hologramatic heroics.
Viewers will soon lose patience with the repetitive pattern set up by the movie's screenplay (co-written by costar Lurie) as each villainous assault by Slash is followed by Jameson kvetching and then Decoda responding to the crooks. The ordinariness of the plot is occasionally varied by a carnival
of demolition and an undercurrent of tongue-in-cheek sadism. If it's a bit too loud and comic-bookish for discerning action buffs, younger audiences may be tickled by the ongoing one upmanship between the cop turned hologram and the anti-establishment crook turned cyber-anarchist. The problem here
is that both Slash the villain of the piece and the Armani-suited and corporate monster Jameson evidence more signs of life than the hero does.(Graphic violence, extreme profanity, substance abuse.) leave a comment
