Bullet Points: Digital Man

For those of you who have never heard of the 1995 movie Digital Man you may be thinking it is an obscure superhero movie like Black Scorpion or Pumaman. While that would be a good guess, it would also be wrong.

Digital Man is a film that borrows from movies like The Terminator, Robocop and Universal Soldier with action movie veteran Matthias Hues in the titular role. Digital Man is also a film that combines action and sci-fi elements and successfully mixes in some comedy to produce an above average action flick.

• The Premise: A group of terrorists have stolen the launch codes for 250 nuclear missiles and are using the codes and the threat of World War III to blackmail there way into a life of luxury. But while the terrorists are planning on living large once they are paid handsomely for the codes, they could not have possibly planned for is a new prototype D1 robot (aka Digital Man) being deployed to take them out. The element of surprise baby! Digital Man not only successfully kills every terrorist, he also retrieves the all important launch codes and downloads them into his memory. But a funny thing happens on the way back to the base… the spaceship carrying Digital Man crashes (thanks to some foul play that we will get into later) in a small desert town in the Southwest United States known as Badwater. (Side note: If the town was known as Black Water there would have been a Doobie Brothers video at the bottom of this review). With a prototype robot now wandering around the desert with the launch code to nukes inside him, a commando unit is sent in to retrieve the codes but it also means they have to take out the nearly indestructible Digital Man.

• The Bad Guy: Now you are probably thinking that the Digital Man is the bad guy in this film. While that would be a good guess, you would be wrong.  The Digital Man to me is merely doing what he was programmed to do and responding to situations according to that programming, so I don’t really consider him the bad guy in the movie. The real bad guys are the guys who orchestrated the crash to begin with… more on them in a bit. Matthias Hues is a great action movie bad guy… if you need any examples of his heavy work check out I Come In Peace, Fists of Iron or Mission of Justice. But it was refreshing to see Matthias Hues in a slightly different role in Digital Man.

• The Comic Relief: As I mentioned at the top of this post, Digital Man manages to intertwine some comedy through out the movie and most of that comic relief is courtesy of the Billy and Susie characters. We are introduced to this couple as they are fornicating in their trailer while The Sex Channel is playing in the background to set the mood. Digital Man unknowingly interrupts the love making when he takes over the satellite dish outside their trailer so he can uplink. This upsets Billy to no end as he had to save up a lot of disability checks to pay for the dish. When Billy goes outside to see what the problem is, he encounters The Digital Man and the end result… his trailer is blown up. I should mention that Billy is played by Patrick Swayze’s baby brother, Don Swayze.

• The Spoiler: If you plan on watching Digital Man you may want to skip this paragraph as I am about to reveal the true bad guys of the film. Now that you’ve been properly warned. The character that “arranged” for Digital Man’s spaceship to crash in Badwater was Dr. Parker. Since Parker was played by Paul Gleason, this did not really come as a surprise to me. Gleason is great at playing the weasel in movies like he did in Die Hard. The real shocker is that Gleason had a partner in crime… his name General Roberts. Roberts was played by Ed Lauter! When I found out that Lauter was playing a bad guy in this one, the whole movie turned.

If Digital Man took itself more seriously, I may have been critical of some of the effects used or even the logic of the story at times. But the tone of the film gave off that, just sit back and enjoy it vibe and that’s exactly what I did.

Now why don’t you sit back and enjoy some bonus Digital Man Bullet Points…

• Familiar Faces: Some of the familiar faces in Digital Man that I have not already addressed include a small role for Clint Howard, he played a robot stooge for Dr. Parker in this one… Adam Baldwin played Captain West, the man who made the bold call to send Digital Man to counteract the terrorists… And Ken Olandt, who I recognized from non-action roles like Leprechaun and Summer School, as the leader of the commando unit, Sergeant Anders. Olandt actually does have some action credentials on his resume, mostly from the world of television with appearances in Airwolf, The Fall Guy and The A-Team. He also was the star of an action TV movie turned series called Super Force.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see a CGI version of Matthias Hues, then this is the movie for you. The entire opening credits sequence was done by computer, including a CGI look at The Digital Man.
• Who Made Who?: One of the other plot devices used in the movie involves the commando unit. The unit is mixed and that isn’t a reference to gender and race, but that some are human and some are cyborgs and the team doesn’t know who is who.
• Quality Death: The guns used in this film are really pulse cannons and this weapon provides one of the best death scenes I have seen in a while when Digital Man ends up shooting one of the commandos named Woon. The shot of Woon getting shot is really, really good. I am talking, rewind to watch it again good!