Plot: Five years after being sentenced to holographic stasis, Norman is given parole hearing. After an orchestrated technical glitch by his cronies, his soul escapes from computer prison and stalks the streets as an electromagnetic hologram.
I’m definitely back in a PM Entertainment phase and Hologram Man may be a ridiculous title for a movie (and the movie is indeed ridiculous) but I love every second of it. The cast includes the late, great Joe Lara as our lead Decoda who starts off as a by-the-book rookie but after his colleague Wes (John Amos) is killed by the crazed Slash Gallagher (Evan Lurie) he changes and becomes far tougher and ruthless.
This feels similar to Demolition Man in some ways and even mentions it at one point but rather than cryogenically freezing criminals they are turned into holograms… for some reason. Slash is arrested and turned into one but at his parole hearing 5 years later he escapes and with his new power he plans to change society from corporate ownership. To be fair, I’d probably vote for Slash as I like the cut of his jib however, the whole murdering people thing might get him in trouble eventually.
This movie is packed with action and is the kind of PM movie I could watch all day, every day. Sure, you could tear it apart critically if you wanted to, but this has everything I could want in an action movie. We get tons of explosions, an awesome opening sequence, shoot-outs, fight scenes and a hilariously graphic near softcore porn love scene which adds nothing to the story but at least there’s boobs.
I actually find William Sanderson’s character the most hateful and annoying of the film, so I couldn’t wait for him to get his comeuppance which ends up being more bizarre than satisfying.
Just over halfway through the movie Decoda is left for dead after a showdown with Slash, so he ends up being uploaded to the system and he becomes a Hologram Man… thus the title of the film.
Obviously some of the visual effects don’t hold up so well especially when either Slash or Decoda are set on fire and it’s quite obviously a wax Mannequin.
Evan Lurie is as entertaining as ever as Slash but he also wrote and produced the film too. He was a staple in these kinds of movie and I do miss seeing him in action pictures although it is safe to say we simply do not get these kinds of movies anymore.
Overall, Hologram Man may be silly but it’s endlessly entertaining with a scene stealing turn from Evan Lurie and Joe Lara at his badass best. There is near-constant action with explosions, fights and shoot-outs to keep this moving along at a rapid pace.
