A low-budget pastiche (some will say rip-off, and let it go at that) of Blade Runner and The Terminator, primarily, with smaller bits of Rabid and Scanners and who-knows-what. But The Terminator, remember, was sued by somebody for copying the idea of a soldier from the future sent back to the present, and we could summon to the witness stand Voltaire (dear God, not again) to testify that originality is only judicious imitation. Trancers, in any case, can hold its own, or even (in some areas) an advantage. There is better attention here, for example, to how the present day would look to a time-traveller from the future, with especially squinty views of the punk scene, Chinatown, and Skid Row, plus a display of classical good taste in TV re-runs (Peter Gunn: "It ain't bad"), and an enlightened perspective on contemporary cuisine ("Beef? You mean like from a cow?"). And nothing resuscitates an old formula like a new face: namely, the roughly hexagonal one of Tim Thomerson, with its jutting cheekbones, tapered forehead, lantern jaw, gorilla-like overhanging brow, and the overall ruggedness of the Perpetual Bit-Player. He makes an excellent front-man for director Charles Band's strategy of self-deprecation, the intention not so much to be downright funny as just not to be altogether serious. With Helen Hunt, Michael Stefani, and Art La Fleur. (1985) — Duncan Shepherd
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