It's a bit 'B', a bit dated, but with redeemable characteristics. Some of the writing is pretty good. The direction was hammy, but at least the tone is managed well, over-all. Dr. Angelo's character is given a little berth to pass off as a realistic character; this invites us to identify with him as a "voice of reason" in a cartoonish sci-fi universe.
Of course, the whole thing uses the misunderstood tech trope of the year, "virtual reality", boosted by mind-altering drugs, as a hook for yet-another story about man's effort to cosmically transcend. This is a strained notion, as any technically savvy dude or dudette knows. So the whole thing rides on a willing suspension of disbelief. The question remains whether this act of suspension rewards us with a sustainable, ennobling myth.
Well, my attempt to give the flick a slight jolt by voting it a '7' is an indicator. The flick is surely dated, but not bad for its time. Where the story fails to fully ennoble, it at least maintains a sense of momentum; I found it quite watchable.
At the very least, it worth watching as a heroic effort by the producers to mythically bend new (at the time) tech toward a moral fable about humankind's perennial tech hubris expressed as yet-another effort to bite off more than can reasonably be chewed.
I was particularly struck by an interesting form taken by the usual story-management effort to keep Dr. Angelo's karma clean: That the dosing of his human subject with the "next-stage" experimental drugs was effected without his knowledge, via subterfuge by admins; not by the researcher (Angelo) himself. Very clever plot point, that!
Anyway. It's not a great flick, but may be worth watching as a kind of worthy period piece. It's a bit of an aesthetic casualty of the 'B'-flick hewings of production folks of the time: If you factor that out, you can see the glimmerings of decent sci-fi.
Of course, the whole thing uses the misunderstood tech trope of the year, "virtual reality", boosted by mind-altering drugs, as a hook for yet-another story about man's effort to cosmically transcend. This is a strained notion, as any technically savvy dude or dudette knows. So the whole thing rides on a willing suspension of disbelief. The question remains whether this act of suspension rewards us with a sustainable, ennobling myth.
Well, my attempt to give the flick a slight jolt by voting it a '7' is an indicator. The flick is surely dated, but not bad for its time. Where the story fails to fully ennoble, it at least maintains a sense of momentum; I found it quite watchable.
At the very least, it worth watching as a heroic effort by the producers to mythically bend new (at the time) tech toward a moral fable about humankind's perennial tech hubris expressed as yet-another effort to bite off more than can reasonably be chewed.
I was particularly struck by an interesting form taken by the usual story-management effort to keep Dr. Angelo's karma clean: That the dosing of his human subject with the "next-stage" experimental drugs was effected without his knowledge, via subterfuge by admins; not by the researcher (Angelo) himself. Very clever plot point, that!
Anyway. It's not a great flick, but may be worth watching as a kind of worthy period piece. It's a bit of an aesthetic casualty of the 'B'-flick hewings of production folks of the time: If you factor that out, you can see the glimmerings of decent sci-fi.