Creating a star by science creates bomb

Simone

Director: Andrew Niccol

Cast: Al Pacino, Winona Ryder, Catherine Keener, Elias Koteas, Pruitt Taylor Vince

Cert: PG.

Technology is going places.

Here, in a disappointing comedy, director Pacino has his star, Ryder, do a runner. He finds a scientist can help him out by creating a programme which allows the creation of a replacement actress. It helps save Pacino's once-doomed project, but it provides him with a massive problem as he has to hide the fact that his actress is computer generated.

It is an idea which holds out much promise of a witty and thoughtful look into the future when we might all be replaceable by electronic images (some of us, I think, already have been). It could have been a much more entertaining film, but the fact that the studio insists on calling it S1mOne says it all. It's all too unsophisticated to be truly funny.

Niccol, who also wrote the screenplay, appears to be a comedy writer without a sense of humour and, more importantly, Pacino is far too "serious" an actor to be cast - cast away - in a comedy. Pacino doesn't do comedy!

Perhaps he's not real - perhaps he's a computer-generated actor!

Star Rating: 1/5