Brainstorm

Brainstorm (1983)

Image From IMDB

Virtual reality, but using all the senses. Yeah, there’s no way the military aren’t going to try and weaponise that…

Brainstorm is about the invention of sensory technology, and then the immediate application of it. Whether to use it to further scientist? Commercialise it? Or, sell it to the military? It follows its inventors who fight the uphill battle to make sure the tech is used correctly, and we all know how that’s going to go.

There’s a lot of interesting ideas in Brainstorm, and it’s shot in a fascinating way too with the director constantly playing around with the aspect ratio. The whole opening sequence when they’re testing Christopher Walken is great, and sets up the story perfectly, along with the films visual style. At first glance, it feels like a very competent and interesting sci-fi.

I also liked how the film kept inching into more exploitation terrority as well, it knows exactly what the technology would be used for, even back in 1983.

The performances from Walken and Natalie Wood are good, but it’s Louise Fletcher who steals the show, especially in one memorable scene which is both fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time–-don’t think i’ll ever forget that scene. I won’t spoil it, even if it means cutting a chunk out of this review which I would have otherwise loved to talk about. (maybe i’ll do a separate piece one day)

However, the science and human drama takes a back seat in the third act replaced by pure zany weirdness, and i’m still not quite sure how I feel about it. I do normally like when things going weird, but it felt in the immortal words of Kirk Lazarus that they went ‘full retard'. I couldn’t tell whether the movie was meant to be a comedy, a farce, a tragedy, dramatic, bizarre, silly, serious, surreal, or all of the above. It just went absolutely bonkers following some utterly startling horror–-and I wasn't even thinking about what happened to the kid.

I think overall it’s a movie which is hard to judge. The ideas are great, and the execution is largely good, but there’s something missing. Maybe it’s the third act that made me feel that way, or maybe there just needed to be a more precise threat, but something didn’t quite work. It’s a movie i’d recommend, but one I also think that afterwards you're be wondering how it could have been improved upon. It was a good effort, but yeah, i’m really not sure about the whole bizarre slapstick hack and trippy immersion in the final act.