king of films

heya


let me describe a film for you, look you see. if i were to tell you that i had recently watched a 90s science fiction film in which a future is presented where everyone is plugged into some giant, malevolent, controlling network, you might suspect you know what i had watched. should i give more details - like, for instance, that the film was created by brothers, special effects are showcased, the obligatory and ostensible "big bad" is played by an Australian, and that the ostensible lead male hero actor is a wooden, inept and dire talent, you'd be certain that i had just watched The Matrix.

not so. instead i watched a film, or if you like a movie (motion picture, perhaps) that was made some five years prior to that particularly iconic one. actually, i would suggest (or speculate) one that was heavily influential on it. yes, indeed, i watched Plughead Rewired : Circuitry Man II. which i am guessing is a sequel to a film what i have never ever heard of but would be bold enough to speculate was called Circuitry Man.

yes, that is indeed the DVD menu screen. also yes, that is unmistakably, although you may not have recognised him, Australian acting legend Vernon Wells. it is his presence in the film, as the partial titular character of Plughead, which is how i came to take custodianship of this film.

provenance of my copy? it was a most generous Christmas gift from His Excellency, the Viscount of Stockton. and many other titles he has, but he does not like a fuss to be made or attention to it all drawn.

if for some reason you wished to have (fairly) immediate proof of this film being made by brothers, well then the above image is for you. this is one of the first moments in the film that s Plughead Rewired Circuitry Man II where you get a sense that every chance exists of the Wachowski brothers (now sisters i believe) might have watched this film just before having their entirely unique, original idea to make The Matrix.

let me be honest here. i have taken far, far too many pictures, images and screenshots of this film to showcase here in relation to what i could possibly say of the movie. but, i will try.

there is a shot from the opening credit sequence. as you can (relatively) clearly see, that's Traci Lords and Vernon Wells, being prepped for some sort of operation or surgical procedure. it kind of makes sense for them to be shown together early on in the film, as the DVD cover has their names most prominently, indicating they are the stars of the show. well, film, not show.

something of a trick is missed in regards of this marketing. well, sure, yes, Vernon Wells is A grade box office and brings in an audience. also, there is a certain, specific market for Traci Lords films too, and this is not just limited to those who appreciated that one time she sang with the Manics. but an entirely different audience could have been reached, as we shall see as we go on. if you keep reading.

above is what i take to be the plot, or if you will synopsis of the film. most useful and handy for those of us what had never ever heard of the first film, but for some reason have found ourselves watching this, the only sequel to it that i am aware of.

perhaps a *** SPOILER WARNING *** sort of thing should have appeared in this post by now, or at some stage of it. not so, i believe. the main motivating factor (other than Vernon Wells) in watching this film is shown in the next picture, and believe me there is no relevance whatsoever to the plot. also, knowing the entire story of the film will not blemish your extraction of pleasure.

indeed that is Deborah Shelton, of fame from my much beloved Body Double. also she was in Dallas for a little while, and some other stuff, probably. here she is pictured with that rather wooden, stale and inept male lead i mentioned earlier. no, it is not Keanu, but i think when they more or less remade this film as The Matrix Keanu ticked all the boxes for a similar acting ability to this chap.

there was no stage of the film at all where i was entirely confident that i knew what the plot, or the story, was. perhaps it is fitting then, that i would appear to be writing of it in a decidedly non-linear way. if you are confused about how my comments are structured, well, this is better preparation for you for watching the film. no need to thank me.

maybe it was meant to be that this film was just addressing the (presumably many) loose ends or unanswered questions from the first Circuity Man film. having not seen it, i simply do not know. this would, however, explain the 20 or 30 plot lines that seem to be on the go, featuring ill defined characters doing stuff for no apparent reason.

like, for instance, these two. the film appears to expect audiences to know who they are, and just maybe those what saw the first one do. i did not. all i know is that they were in some sort of weird Brazil prison, where they were hammering wooden sticks or poles of some material into the ground, and then they escape and head off, apparently in pursuit of Plughead.

another two characters i do not know about form 66% of the above picture. to be specific, it would be the fairly obviously male 66% you can see. as far as i could work out, they were fbi agents or similar, and were also quite keen on catching this Plughead fellow. no, at this stage i had no idea at all as to what Plughead may have done that was so naughty or wrong.

the most interesting element (or aspect) of the above scene was that them two chaps were securing a vehicle for use in chasing Plughead. one of them, from what i recall the one without a hat, had to pay for such transportation by giving the lady you can see in the image his shoes. this is a rather interesting and partially fascinating glimpse into how money works in the future according to this film, but is a concept which is never again touched after this scene.

what of Vernon Wells, you may ask. if you did, i shall try and answer. in this motion picture event, Vernon has been at last elevated to the echelons of his natural peers. just like Brando in The Godfather and Hopkins in the silence of the lambs, here Wells is pivotal, embracing minimal screentime to give the maximum, dominant performance in the film. prejudice, presumably, and modesty perhaps precluded him from Oscar consideration for his sentimental portrayal of the titular character.

much of the motivation, purpose and reason for his character is somewhat lost in the film. this is due to them never quite explaining who he is or why he is doing anything, but maybe that was all made clear in the first film. certainly, one driving aspect of his performance is a wish to impregnate Traci Lords. this, however, tends to be a basic plot premise of every film what Traci Lords is in.

yes, that is Deborah Shelton out of Body Double, along with the inept, wooden actor in a strait jacket, about to be transported (to Brazil, i think) in some fancy mail teleporter device. the Spanish looking chap operating the machine is, i suppose, quite like the Laurence Fishburne / Morpheus character what was created for Matrix, although Morpheus was way better, man.

one of the more interesting elements (aspects, maybe) of the whole teleporter concept was how they paid to use it. cash, basically. well, i think so. in the future, then, according to this film it remains that cash is king, that cash is tax free, that cash is the absolute best way to secure goods and services which one does not wish to have any official trace of the transaction for.

this point, or notion, or concept, or theoretical idea, or premise (or similar) is emphasised, illustrated, compounded and explored with the juxtaposition of the above scene. here we find our two fbi (or whatever) agents heading to Brazil (or wherever) in the vehicle which they purchased with the apparently recognised currency of the future in the guise of shoes. from what i recall some valid reason was given for them having to wear the white overalls or jumpsuits, but i have forgotten what that was. i suppose i could look it up, or watch the preceding scene which featured them and explained it all, but i am not particularly interested.

in terms of scenes which appear relevant to the plot, and also showcase the vast, dynamic range of the talents of Vernon Wells, there was the below. although contextually this part of the film made no sense as Vernon (or Plughead, i suppose) was all of a sudden in a suit and doing some business, all the same it was very entertaining indeed.

well, when i say entertaining, that's on the basis that everyone is like me and is just in awe of what an amazing actor Vernon Wells is. here he directly evokes Brando in Godfather, as he sits brokering a deal, offering the chap a cigarette and conducting the sale of something or other which appears to give the chap more life than he anticipated having. unlike Brando, Wells did not need to use a prop such as a cat to accentuate his performance, unless the cigarettes were intended as a metaphor for a cat in channeling that memorable scene out of The Godfather.

from what i could work out, the Vernon Wells character owns, controls or directly influences this massive network thing what everyone can or does "plug" in to. this is perhaps not as evil or as sinister as it may sound, and it does not seem as negative as it was presented in The Matrix. at one stage, for instance, several people are shown plugged in to a big massive joint virtual reality rave thing, where sex and drugs and mediocre music flow freely.

at several points during my screening of Plughead Rewired : Circuitry Man II yes, it was true, i was quite tempted to switch it off, due to it being a load of f*****g rubbish. however, the rather talented directors clearly anticipated this, and found the means and ways to renew an engagement with the audience and the subject matter. the dominant, or if you like most effective of these was the perpetual, gratuitous, unnecessary and yet extremely effective and welcome cleavage shots of Deborah Shelton out of Body Double. on seeing such well crafted scenes i felt compelled to keep watching, my interest in the plot being refreshed and renewed.

how does Vernon Wells get on with his ambition of impregnating Traci Lords? quite well, from what i could ascertain. as far as i was able to understand it, the original ideas were for Traci to get pregnant off of Vernon by that fancy looking procedure at the start, or by means of this "plugged in" Matrix inspiring network stuff what Vernon appears responsible for. or in control of, at the least. for whatever reason this appears to be unsuccessful or displeasing, so an "old school" (in the context of the motion picture) approach is embraced.

one of the biggest challenges for Vernon Wells in his portrayal of Plughead must surely have been the inability to rely on the generally natural homoerotic overtones he is so fondly associated with. in this film he was seemingly stopped from using his go to tools of the trade. from what i could work out his trousers, for instance, were just regular and perfectly serviceable, and were neither leather nor had is arse hanging out of them, as was the case in Mad Max 2. also, he is completely clean shaven, and does not wear any butch macho man chainmail, meaning we don't perceive him as the big bushy moustached man love machine he was in Commando.

a quite controversial trend in modern arts is that of "subverting audience expectations". in present times, this catch all comment is used to deflect valid criticism when something that should have been good turns out to be totally and utterly sh!t, infuriating both the paying and pirating audience. this exceptionally lame and pathetic excuse has most recently been used to laughably defend rubbish such as the final series of Game Of Thrones and The Last Jedi. here, though, you get audience expectations subverted exactly as they should be. seeing Vernon Wells play a purely and unequivocally heterosexual character was quite a shock for audiences, and a mostly (or partially) successful one.

my interest in the film falling away was once again anticipated by the directors of Plughead Rewired : Circuitry Man II. apparently they knew that a point in the film was reached where people were likely to go "no, this is cr@p, i am turning it off", so threw in a scene where Deborah Shelton out of Body Double and that wooden actor encounter some "warriors of the wasteland" tribal types. no, they are not really as smart as the ones in Mad Max 2 and the scene is not very interesting, but the directorial decision was made to have Deborah Shelton out of Body Double take further items of clothing off for the scene, so i kept on watching.

do i have any interesting "going back", as it were, and watching the original Circuitry Man? yes, as it happens, i do. i suppose i could watch it now, after seeing the sequel, and view it as some form of elaborate prequel. from what i recall i watched Rocky III long before i saw the first or II and that did not have an adverse affect on my enjoyment. however, a quick browse suggests that the original (or first) film is very rare indeed, with copies selling for just subliminally south of twenty pounds, cash. even magazine adverts for the first film are listed at around ten pounds, which is more or less five times the price of another copy of this sequel.

yes, i suppose i could see if it is available on one of them "streaming" services, or simply pirate it, but to be honest i simply cannot be bothered to exert all that much effort into it. if i was going to use all that much energy, i would probably do so to find Circle Man (or Last Man Standing), starring Vernon Wells.

the above is a scene which is just a fraction of a millimetre of a second before the moment in which it became perfectly clear that Plughead Rewired : Circuitry Man II was in fact king of films as the tile of this post suggests. a scene which i shall never forget, and one which meant that this motion picture ranks as (at least) one of the ten best motion pictures i have ever seen. yes, Deborah Shelton out of Body Double has a topless scene in this film. allow yourself a moment to consider this.

exactly what the thinking was in not exploiting or drawing attention to the above in marketing the film remains a mystery. the DVD box does not even mention that Deborah Shelton out of Body Double is even in the film, let alone has such a pivotal, important scene in it. had they made all of this clear when they released it, i would probably think that Plughead Rewired : Circuitry Man II would have been the first ever motion picture to make over one billion dollars on its theatrical release, and no way would they have dared "borrow" the plot details for The Matrix or anything else.

just a final image from the film, then, with a final look at Vernon Wells, resplendent in some sort of fancy make up and special effects, at the devastating conclusion of the film. well, i think it was devastating. i am not sure. everything after that pivotal scene with Deborah Shelton out of Body Double is a bit of a murky blur, in truth, with me not being particularly interested, for i was satisfied that this film was excellent, despite it being a load of complete and utter f*****g rubbish.

would i recommend audiences seek out Plughead Rewired : Circuitry Man II at all? no, perhaps, maybe, yes, absolutely. the merits and interesting points of the premise and plot (whatever they actually were) are all elements which were probably better handled in the quasi remake of it as The Matrix. but Vernon Wells, man. also, that key, pivotal and brilliant scene featuring Deborah Shelton out of Body Double. i suppose whether or not you would enjoy or appreciate this film comes down to what exactly you want a movie to do.

if they ever do a blu ray release of this film, or one of them 4K UHD restoration things, then yes i would purchase it. also, if they re-release it on Beta, or VHS, then i would also buy it on those formats. for now, i may just go and buy loads and loads of copies of the DVD, which generally you can get for 1p south of £2, in the hope that it boosts attention on (or for) this quite remarkable, landmark, genre and era defining motion picture.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!