Watched Scanners again this past week. Like other David Cronenberg flicks i’ve seen in the past, it’s an interesting study. On the one hand, you have good ol’ #6 himself, Patrick McGoohan – who sadly passed away almost a year ago (!) as one of the central characters – not unlike another famous limey, Oliver Reed, a few years earlier in The Brood. While I really like P McG a lot – this role is more subtle and muted than otherwise normal for him – not a ton of dialog, a bit disappointing. This movie really had people talking back when it came out, but it really hasn’t aged terribly well. Like other DC movies of that time (The Brood and Videodrome come to mind), it’s kinda low budget and relies more on suspense and nefarious motivations than a lot of special effects – although there are some particularly gory parts – see title of post 🙂 And of course Michael Ironside makes one of his first star turns as one of the all-time best bad guys out there in moviedom. I was about to write “It’s too bad he never faced Chuck Norris” but then I see from his IMDB record he WAS actually in Walker, Texas Ranger several times – I hope he got in a few good kicks ‘in the groonies’ before Walker was required to win the fight scenes (of course).

Anyway, Scanners would be a good ‘nerd’ party movie these days – probably a bit plodding for those not geeky enough. I’m hoping DC comes back with some better movies in the future – despite Ralph Fiennes (on his way to some serious bad-guy cred of his own of late), Spider was pretty boring, and A History of Violence had its moments but was too conventional and a bit predictable. Bring back the crazy ‘computer/nerd takes over the world’ evil plots and offbeat leading men like Peter Weller or Jeremy Irons! Now **that’s** some entertainment! 🙂

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