Trancers (1985)

* out of ****

Childhood memories can be flawed. You remember a long-ago relative as being a giant..... you meet him again as an adult you find he's barely more than average size. Grandma's basement was a labyrinth of treasures and secrets..... then you visit years later and see it as small, dank and claustrophobic. You are enthralled by a movie filled with excitement and intrigue..... then watching it again decades later it is a truly silly piece of cinematic trash.

Such is “Trancers”. A flick I found very entertaining as a teen which on viewing now I can't believe I ever liked. Although I will go easy on myself by suggesting that some others must have enjoyed it as it has since spawned two sequels.

Reveling in its own low-budget limitations, “Trancers” is a fairly typical sci-fi time-waster from the 80s. Tim Thomerson is Jack Deth (I have to give them this – that's a great name), a 23^rd century cop that spends his time tracking “Whistler”, a psychic who can turn the weak minded into brainless killing machines. When Whistler travels back in time to kill the ancestors of those chasing him, Deth has to follow suit and go back to 1985. They achieve this by transporting your consciousness into the body of an ancestor, leaving your own body behind. This was actually a nice plot device as it added the challenge that Whistler's ancestor was a cop, giving him the authority to remove anyone he suspects is after him from the picture.

One of the better parts of the movie is Helen Hunt as Leena, a Madonna-wannabe that Deth meets up with in 1985. Though her actions and dialogue make no more sense than anyone else's, you can at least see that Hunt's acting is a step above the wild over- emoting that everyone else is projecting. Together Leena and Jack are able to plot a way to stop Whistler and get everyone back into their own time.

When I watched this years ago it seemed to me that it was a “good bad movie” - one that you know was made on a shoestring budget but that overcame that with a fun storyline. Now I see that it is trying very hard to be just that, but the plot holes and lack of continuity is often just plain silly. Thomerson isn't bad in the role, but he really has nothing to work with here. The best part of the entire film is his brief ability to stretch a single second out into ten seconds (allowing for getaways from tight situations).  Early in the film that made for a great scene that really rocked the slo-mo.

But the whole thing just isn't very good.....

Shattering youthful illusions is never much fun, but at least I won't ever make the mistake of suggesting anyone else ever watch it. Though it's not completely without time-wasting capability, I am very confident that I won't ever make any attempt to watch it again.