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Brainstorm (1983) -- a review

The Amazon streaming service had a surprise for me the other night: Brainstorm, the 1983 science fiction film that wound up becoming actress Natalie Wood’s last movie, due to her untimely death. I saw this when it was first released in theaters, not really paying much heed to the behind the scenes saga. At that time, I was so hungry for new science fiction--ANY science fiction--that I happily ran to the theater whenever a promising SF feature came out.

Watching Brainstorm, with its themes of life and death, wound up made me very sad back then--so much so that I never re-watched the film again (until recently). I wasn't prepared for how much it reminded too much of the then-recent death of my mother, who was a huge fan of Natalie Wood. Now, re-watching the film for the first time some 42 years later, I enjoyed it as being a strange piece of nostalgia from my late teens.

While Brainstorm is flawed, the concept of scientists working on a machine that can record people’s observances and life experiences is still a fascinating one. And the film showing the steady progression of the design of the tech, and the scientists all working diligently to perfect it is very interesting to watch. But the execution of the overall story is lacking, thanks to a weird devolving of logic that insists on dumbing things down and cutting all of the characterization in favor of a traditional 'us vs them' storyline.

The film’s first-time director, Douglas Trumball, who made his name as a special effects genius on films like 2001, does his best. There’s a nice comparison to the Wright Brothers and Michael Brace’s (Christopher Walken) brain scanning work when he and his wife Karen (Natalie Wood) visit the Wright Brothers Memorial, and the viewer is made to understand how Michael has the same drive that propelled the Wright Brothers to make their historical flight. Michael also wants to push the limits of what he can achieve.

And Louise Fletcher gives a wonderful performance as Dr. Lillian Reynolds, the co-creator of the device who is equally driven to make it work--and then to not let it fall into the wrong hands. Her character’s death scene, where she records herself while having a fatal heart attack, was still chilling and unsettling for me to watch even after all of these years. I was also pleasantly surprised at some of the prescient moments that Brainstorm has, such as when they come under attack by a technique we would now recognize to be hacking.

But there’s a terminal silliness here that the movie just doesn’t shake free of. In the second half, the tone turns into a dopey kiddie flick, thanks to the sudsy robot rebellion in the factory, and the destruction of so much priceless research, just to keep it out of the hands of the “bad guys.” Just when it looks like there might be hope that Brainstorm would reach the very lofty heights that it strives for, it dives back downward, seemingly content with being a typical, numb-headed popcorn movie of that age. Which is a shame, because--for what would turn out to be her last film--Natalie deserved better. --SF

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