THE TERMINAL MAN
Beep...beep...beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

  Whoa, talk about slow!  There are a lot of worthwhile things about this movie, but a pace like a snail trying to haul itself across salt flats blows it off at the knees.  I don't remember much about the Michael Crichton novel upon which this is based, but I remember liking it, quick and efficient.  Sure can't say that 'bout this movie...

George Segal stars as Harry Benson, a man with technophobic paranoia (he fears machines and that people are turning into machines) and occasional bouts of uncontrollable rage.  He volunteers for a treatment by which electrodes will be inserted into his brain and the right parts of his brain will become automatically stimulated when it looks like an episode is coming on.  Then, of course, all hell breaks loose.

One character in the movie questions the wisdom of choosing this particular patient.  I mean, lemme get this straight, he's afraid that people are being turned into machines, and he volunteers to have electrodes put into his brain?  One guy, in the whole movie, finds this odd.  And it's not like there's a shortage of possible test subjects; the film's first scene establishes that as many as one or two percent of Americans may be afflicted by the raging episodes this procedure is supposed to treat.  It's this conflict that drives the film (and probably drove the novel too, though I don't remember), and I can't help but think it's a pretty lousy place to start.

There are good things about this movie; in particular, a frightening scene were Harry has his implants triggered in varying order as a test.  At first, the feelings induced are fairly harmless; the taste of a ham sandwich, for example.  Then they give him a strong urge to  urinate (despite him having an empty bladder), which could be a horribly effective weapon if used right, and then, they actually reduce him to tears of laughter, and then romantic reverie.

This movie could have used more scenes like that, but you won't find them.  There are some not-bad slasher thrills in the film's last act, but the bulk of this is sooooooo drawn out.  The scene with the operation where the implants are inserted is incredibly long and dull, showing us virtually nothing so that basically what we have is a very long scene of doctors talking.  This might've been excusable if it were to give the impression of a long, arduous operation, but the event is timed at thirty-eight minutes, which is pretty brief stuff for brain surgery.

One of the problems I had with Tarantino's Jackie Brown was that the movie felt substantially longer than the book it's based on (in truth, it probably took me about 45-60 minutes longer to read the book); not intrinsically a bad thing, but almost always something to avoid.  The Terminal Man has the same problem; it could have made a fine one-hour (including commercials) episode of TV.  Instead, it's a middling, two-hour film.

Not without its rewards, but keep that fast-forward button near.  Written and directed by Mike Hodges, who would later leave the second Omen movie and make that unbelievably silly Flash Gordon movie, which is a hoot if you're in the right mood.

BACK TO MAIN PAGE BACK TO THE T's