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Dream Hacker is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.
DIRECTED BY: Richard Colton
FEATURING: Molly Hanson, Luke J I Smith, Gary Webster, Hannaj Bang Bendz
PLOT: A brilliant scientist creates a machine which enables the user to hijack sleepers’ minds, and her dream to use the technology for psychotherapy is thwarted by sinister forces.
COMMENTS: This felt very much like a middling science fiction show from thirty years ago—albeit a fairly charming one. An earnest psychiatrist (with more than a little savvy in the field of computing and cybernetics) wants to improve the world, one trauma-sufferer at a time, with an enhanced doo-dad allowing her access to their subconscious. Her machinations result not only in such a device, but also an artificial intelligence to guide her through both the dreamscape (a slightly purple-tinged forest clearing) and the concurrent possibilities of remote body control. A glowing headset, a charismatic avatar, obscure government meddling, a sinister tech-conspiracy—it’s all here, and it all ambles forward in a cutesy thriller kind of way.
Doctor Jennifer Connelly (no, that not one, as clarified during an early scene with a woefully man-bunned blind date) is an unlikely heroine, which is apt considering her naïvety about mankind’s more sinister ambitions. She is awkwardly charming: an American plopped into a metro-collegiate British milieu. (I swear, it seems you couldn’t toss a Beefeater in this movie without hitting one of the hundreds of iconic structures that litter the greater London area.) Her mentor has a tragic history which flirts with the pathetic, and the primary villain is of unclear national extraction.
Jennifer finds herself testing the machine for the first time immediately following the regrettable blind date, waking in the body of a waitress/stripper in Florida. Adam, the artificial intelligence she discovers in her program, combines nigh-omnipotence and simple charm. He, too, can take over (sleeping) bodies, and can otherwise manifest a visible form to Jennifer using the unspecified powers of “science.” The baddies muddle along attempting to kidnap Jennifer, whilst Jennifer and Adam hatch their own plan involving help from the stripper. This and other relationship story-drops are tied in and around the overarching narrative arc towards a rom-com-ish finish.
So, this thing was cute: a big, big, big idea put in service by a plucky adventurer, her computerized friend, and a kooky stripper. I am left with no complaints , except an unlikely one. I kind of want more of this breezy nonsense. Dream Hacker unspools as perfectly as a feature-length pilot for mid-90s science fiction television show. Its goofiness, disregard for grand implications, and laser-focus on the affable leads would demand at least half of a season before the network cancels it.
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