Remember Brainstorm? Natalie Wood's last film about recording memories that could be played back into another person? Great idea. Strange Days in many ways picks up on that idea and runs the ball farther down the field. This should have been one hell of a kick-ass movie.

Strange Days just doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. At one level, it's a thriller with murder and mystery. It's also very erotic in a romantic sense, as well as showing the dark side of sexuality. It's a cop movie and it's a drug movie, and it's a love triangle story. There's just too much going on, too many sub-plots, too much everything. Strange Days is a very unfocused film.

It's the unfocused feel that's the problem, because the idea is great; the characters are well thought out; motives are there, and the recording of experiences is a fantastic hook. All of this stuff just doesn't fit in 145 minutes.

With a little more tightened story, perhaps some help in the editing, this would have lived up to the promise. Writer/producer James Cameron and director Kathryn Bigelow (who is divorced from Cameron) both have excellent histories in film. To be disappointed so much by these two people is quite a shock.

Dust Bag Full

Film Facts

Cast
• Ralph Fiennes
• Aggela Bassett
• Juliette Lewis
• Tome Sizemore

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Released in 1995

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewed by Mongo