Movies - Virtuosity

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	Movies - Virtuosity

Virtuosity is a 1995 science fiction movie directed by Brett Leonard. The movie tells the story of a virtual villain's successful attempt to escape into the "real world". SID 6.7, the villain program portrayed by Russell Crowe, is eventually transplanted into an android body and escapes. Parker Barnes, a reinstated police officer played by Denzel Washington, is given the chance to catch him.

Plot

Tagline: Justice needs a new program

Programmer Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer of the Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) developed SID version 6.7: a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity amalgamation of 183 notorious criminal personalities: mass murderers, serial killers, and megalomaniacs. Programmed using genetic algorithms, each of the 183 killers in SID holds the memories, personality/behavioral traits, and emotional composition as the original. Being far too complex to design, Lindenmeyer had SID's program begin with him as a child (sped up in virtual reality), having the killers in his subconscious raise him and guide him in the ways of the world. The killers emerge through the 50 terabyte, self-evolving neural network that is SID through a sort of Multiple Personality Disorder, giving way to the stronger personalities depending on each situation.

LETAC would like to train police officers by putting them in VR with SID, the idea being that if the cops in the virtual reality simulator could catch him they could catch anyone. First they must prove the concept works - in which they decide to do using prisoners as test subjects. While two of the prisoners were inside virtual reality, SID, having the accumulated knowledge of 183 madmen, raised the neural sensitivity calibrations in the VR program, causing the pain being received to be more lethal than real-life. SID killed one of the two prisoner-turned-temporary-police officers by torture through electrocution - a technique not available as one of his methods of killing. The aftermath left the prisoner/contestant dead of severe, concentrated seizures to the major pain receptors of the brain. The other participant, who was taken out of VR before SID finished him off, was left temporarily traumatized.

Witnessing the catastrophe, Commissioner Elizabeth Deane, the director overseeing the SID project, ordered to have it shut down. Later, Lindenmeyer grievely told his masterpiece his fate. SID, in turn, told Lindenmeyer an alternative. Tricking Clyde Reilly, a befriended coworker at LETAC, into turning SID's persona into a regenerating android (better known as a 'nanotech synthetic organism'). Less than 30 seconds after being released into our world, Reilly became SID's first victim. Now in the real world, he is free of all behavioral limits he had in virtual reality, gaining the ability to now grow on his own - rewriting and improving his own programming.

Character Bios

Madison Carter

Madison Carter (played by Kelly Lynch) is a doctor of criminal psychology, writer of criminal psychology non-fiction, and occasionally acts as a consultant for LETAC. She currently has two books published, involved in the SID Project as research for her third book. Single mother of Karen Carter.

Lt. Parker Barnes

Police Lieutenant Parker Barnes was a decorated police officer who was put on the task of apprehending political terrorist, Matthew Grimes. Known for a single-minded determination that bordered on the obsessive, Grimes hoped to convince Barnes to halt his pursuit in exchange for the lives of Barnes' wife, Linda, and child, Christy. Barnes answered by storming Grimes' underground base of operations, killing all who posed a threat. During this brigade, Grimes was having an interview by a television crew. When Barnes came to the cell where his family was held, he hastily opened the door, setting off the trigger to the explosives, killing his family and destroying his left arm. Recovering, Barnes continued through the maze of tunnels until he reached Grimes, killing him with multiple shots to the torso. Jumping around the corner to record the action, Barnes' mistook the crew for lackeys of Grimes, shooting them by instinct. For not following protocol and the wrongful deaths of two civilians, Barnes was incarcerated for seventeen years. His arm was replaced by a metallic artificial limb, covered by an artificial skin graft that matched his skin tone. Nerve reconditioning was done, returning the loss of feeling to destroyed nerve cells in the blast, and also giving him feeling in his replaced arm, however leaving scarring across his back.

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