Total Reality |
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 • USA • 1997 • 100m •   • Directed by: Phillip J. Roth. • Starring: David Bradley, Ely Pouget, Thomas Kretschmann, Misa Koprova, Brian Faker, Melik Malkasian, Geof Prysirr, Michael Mendelson, Anna Nicholas, Marcus Aurelius, Bob Morrisey, Mark McClure, Patsy Pease. • Music by: Jim Goodwin.      In the year 2128, the Earth has become a battleground, where the forces of fascist leader Gen. Tunis have been beaten into submission. However, the victory of the anti-fascist Alliance has come at the expense of much of the planet, which has been laid to waste by Tunis's forces. Refusing to surrender, Tunis instead finds a way to travel back in time to the late 1990s, where he formulates a plan to alter history to his advantage -- and put the fate of the world in jeopardy. However, Lt. Anthony Rand, an Alliance soldier who fights bravely but by his own rules, gets wind of Tunis's scheme; with the help of a group of condemned prisoners, Rand follows Tunis back in time in a desperate effort to save mankind's future.
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Review:
The story: A soldier from the future (Bradley) leads a team of convicts in a suicide mission to 1998 to stop a deadly separatist (Thomas Kretschmann) from changing history.
The movie begins and ends with a bang, showcasing some exciting CG-driven space scenes with graphics that are pretty impressive for a low-budget film from the mid-90s. However, this seems to demonstrate where the majority of the budget has gone: while the contemporary-set scenes do well, the sets for spaceship interiors and the like are far from convincing. I also don't buy the placement of the dramatic scenes: there are a couple of genuinely well-acted exchanges late in the movie, but they arrive too late to generate much interest in the largely mundane personas, and would have been better placed earlier in the production. David Bradley gives one of the better performances of his career and Thomas Kretschmann is the closest thing the film has to genuine dramatic clout, but for the most part, they are not doing or saying much of genuine interest.
Action-wise, shootouts are the name of the game, but to be honest, there definitely aren't enough adrenaline scenes for a movie like this. David the martial artist gets one fight scene, but otherwise, he and the remaining cast engage in a handful of slow-motioned unexciting gunfights wherein taking cover is completely optional. There really is not much in the way of excitement with this one.
Almost twenty years after the release of TOTAL REALITY, I'm still disappointed that David Bradley's film career ended, but if this is what directly precluded it, I cannot blame whoever made the final decision. No one ought use this film to introduce themselves to either the actor or the director, and would do well to avoid it in general.
Review by The_Phantom_Projectionist from the Internet Movie Database.
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