Mr. Payback

“The world's first interactive movie” is either a giant leap forward for video-game enthusiasts or a large step backward for film purists. More likely, it falls somewhere in between, combining recently created technology with old-school plotting that, in effect, allows you to experience the somewhat chaotic thrill of playing along in a giant revenge fantasy with a theatre full of boisterous mallrats. The package's creators have hot-wired the theatre's seats with vidgame joysticks that light up when Mr. Payback (Warlock), a sort of Everyman's practical-joking Terminator, needs to make some crucial decision, like what sort of juvenile justice he should dispatch to the cookie-cutter villain at hand (i.e., vomit, break wind, or flame-throw). Mr. Payback is only 25 minutes long, but during that brief time, the audience can alter the plot in myriad ways by “voting” for various options listed at the bottom of the screen. It's essentially an updating of the old “Dragon's Lair” vidgame of the early Eighties, only bigger, faster, and louder (at the beginning of the movie, an Interfilm voiceover urges the audience to actively participate in the goings-on by yelling, screaming, and just generally acting as enthusiastic as possible). Technically, Gale's (producer of the Back to the Future series) direction is passable at best: There are no outlandish special effects or daring camerawork here, and the paper-thin story of Mr. Payback is as simple-minded as they come. While shot on film, it's actually video-projected onto the theatre screen via a laserdisc, and there's still a few bugs in that end of the game (the image doesn't fit the screen, it's fuzzy, and the sound is a bit murky) which leave you with the feeling that you've just watched a second-generation video tape of a third-generation video game. The film's target demographics -- juvenile males with excess cash flow -- will probably get a charge out of the experience for a little while, but my guess is that without better plots, characters, and effects, the upcoming wave of interactive movies may disappear faster than you can say 3-D.