"Overdrawn at the Memory Bank"

Review by Giggles (3/4/03)

OVERALL SCORE: 9/10

Aram Fingal likes to “scroll up” cinemas. One of his favorites is Casa Blanca. The computer government that runs the future doesn’t approve of this action, and thus sends him to compulsory rehab. Rehab has the subject “doppled,” a brainless verb that describes taking someone’s brain and sticking its essence into another animal’s body. I don’t really understand why Fingal doesn’t enjoy this process more. If watching movies is so interesting to him, you’d think that looking through the eyes of another being would be especially thought provoking.

While in the process of being “doppled,” a little snot-nosed brat switches ID cards on Fingal and the company actually loses his body. What is not addressed very much in the film is the very very very funny fact that, with the wrong ID, his body is scheduled for a sex change. You see, the stakes are higher in the movie than you can ever realize. As Daisy the baboon, Fingal is being attacked by an elephant, freaks out and yells, “Override priority!” (whatever the shit that means). By doing this, he flings his consciousness into the computer and begins to make a reality around him.

Casa Blanca is the reality he likes best, but before spending time there, he picks a girl from his work to have endless sex with until he gets bored. I guess cyberspace sex just can’t satisfy ole’ Aram. Appollonia tries to talk him through his reality and save him, but Fingal does most of the work from the inside. Appollonia really tries though; she tries not to “bungle or boggle the Fingal dopple.” This is particularly difficult however, because the powerful Fat Man has plans for using Fingal to manipulate the computer--- this is where my understanding of the story falls into murky dishwater.

Whatever the hell it is, this movie doesn’t make you want to look to far into it. It’s a science fiction piece that probably had a minute amount of promise when it was first filmed for television. I don’t recall any other cyberspace movies made in 1985 (in fact, The Matrix is the only one besides Johnny Mnemonic that had an audience in the past twenty years--- there are others, but none that were really popular). So, in a way, “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” breaks a little ground. Of course, Back to the Future came out that year also.  

PLOT GRADE: 6/6

Note: the movie can receive a 6 and still have a lackluster plot. This is a rating system designed for bad movies in relation to other bad movies.

The special effects were pretty typical for television at the time of this movie’s release eighteen years ago. Pretty much, you can do all of the “effects” on a good video camera nowadays. The setting is easily reproduced as well--- just go down to your local mall and take away all of the store facades. Don’t bother with taking the planters away or adding anything. This should suit your purposes.

Regarding the movie, Crow, Bill Corbett says, “The real problem here - rare indeed for our show - is that the lead character is played by an actor who is actually a very good and highly respected actor: Raul Julia. And the recently deceased Raul Julia, at that. So we spent much of the movie feeling a bit worried that we might be besmirching the late Mr. Julia's reputation. But in the end, we went light on Raul and hard on this extraordinarily dumb movie whose relentless ‘funny’ techno-futuro-jargon was the screenwriting equivalent of water torture.”

CHEESINESS:

(2 outta 4)

There are many moments where this movie is relentless in supplying the three moviegoers enough ammunition for insults. The Fat Man is the butt of heart attack jokes and heart bi-passes, while the 80s fashion, highlighted predominantly in Appollonia, is also there to be used and abused. The hidden hatred of anteaters is also a funny recurring joke; when Fingal asks why he has acted a certain way, Mike jibes, “I must be worse than a stupid repulsive anteater.”

The interludes are not this episode’s strength, but do not reach the level of childish humor that some of the others have in the past. The Bot’s pet monkey is amusing, as is Mike’s slobbering efforts to assuage its rage (and defend from it “chucking” things at him).