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| Albert Finney and Susan Dey |
Cosmetic surgeon Larry Roberts (Albert Finney) does work on several beautiful women who obsess over certain "imperfections." You would think that he would wonder where these women got the exact-to-the-centimeter measurements of their alleged flaws, but Roberts only worries about it after they start being murdered. The murders are traced back to a sinister TV test group, Digital Matrix -- although it is never really explained why the women are murdered -- who plan to use computer-generated images to replace real people not just in commercials but in political ads -- or something like that. They have also invented a gun that freezes people in their tracks so to them it appears as if time has passed by without their being aware of it. While the technological stuff is not without interest -- although by now it's rather dated -- Looker is still an astonishingly dull movie despite all the running around. There's one decent, fairly suspenseful scene in which Larry and his surviving patient, Cindy (Susan Dey), break into a lab, but the chase sequences which make up most of the movie aren't that exciting and Finney [Shoot the Moon] looks ridiculous playing action hero, especially when he dresses up like a cop -- he's wasted in the movie anyway. Dey is appealing enough, and James Coburn and Leigh Taylor-Long are appropriately reptilian as the couple who run Digital Matrix, but -- typical for Crichton -- they aren't given actual characters to play. Darryl Hickman [The Tingler] plays Larry's associate, Jim, and looks good with a beard. Michael Crichton's attempt to have himself another hit like Westworld didn't work this time. Some of the pretty women who play Larry's patients can't act to save their lives -- literally.
Verdict: Not worth a "look." *1/2.
