Movies
Scanners
What starts out giving every indication of being intelligent science fiction very soon settles down to being a fanciful sub-Bond spy melodrama, more on the level of television's The Avengers or The Man from U.N.C.L. E., about a network of telepathic supermen who have vague designs on world domination and must, of course, be stopped. The mind-reading and spell-casting and mountain-moving capabilities of scanner power, never very well defined or delimited, are less at home in science fiction than in the pure fantasy of witches and wizards and mesmerists and other wielders of invisible forces. And, invisible as they are, they are also not much at home on screen. With Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, and Patrick McGoohan; written and directed by David Cronenberg. 1981.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: R
