Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future (1985)

Pretty Good

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

For some reason unknown to me I received this video as a prize/gift from a company called 'Argus Press' who in the early '80's were one of many prolific ZX Spectrum games producers. Don't remember entering a competition, but there you go....Anyhow, the film was brilliant, and not to be confused with the later TV series that, from the other write ups, I now learn of.If this film is not on DVD then it should be. The dark urbun setting of some nightmare future is perfectly portrayed and the story is much as has been described in previous reviews.Blipverts! - I'm surprised they aren't on Fox nowadays, in saying that the most indolent members of society may be most at risk there! The one thing that hasn't been mentioned, but that should be emphasized, is the fantastic soundtrack, coming as it did from the pen of Midge Ure who had recently departed the prolific 'Ultravox'. The setting, soundtrack, script and performance from a tremendous bunch of characters made this a film that, to this day, I still pull out of the loft and watch on my annual pilgrimage back home for Christmas.To me its the urbun dystopia, the (then) futuristic use of desktop computers to track the action and the soundtrack that made this one hell of a movie and one of the most unsung of the 1980's.

Why this movie has never been put to DVD is beyond me. A wonderful cast of actors, Matt Frewer, Morgan Shepherd, Hilary Tindall, Paul Spurrier, Amanda Pays, Paul Spurrier and George Rossi.Matt Frewer and Amanda Pays are TV reporters who find out that a corporate TV company that controls what people watch run by Ben Chevio (Constantine Gregory) is developing a new type of advert - a Blipvert - to entice people to buy goods, unfortunately it has some unexpected side effects, Max Headroom (Matt Frewer) is created following a slight accident whilst trying to get away from Paul Spurrier and George Rossi (Breugal and Mahler - body part dealers who have been retained by its designer, Byrce Lynch (Paul Spurrier) to dissuade people from finding out about the project.Whilst escaping on a motorbike Frewer hits a closing – remotely closed by Bryce – car parking barrier and suffers head injuries, Frewer' personality is taken from his brain by Byrce Lynch and made into a computer generated TV icon as a pet project.Blank Reg (Morgan Shepherd) and Dominique (Hilary Tindall) owners of BIGTIME TV find the computer containing Max by accident and decide - when they power it up and see Max, to broadcast him as a presenter on their network.Theora Jones (Amanda Pays) then attempts to regain the personality to put back into Frewers head after rescuing him from the body bank.There's a lot more to it but overall an excellent movie, if the powers that be don't release this to DVD they themselves should receive a visit from Breugal and Mahler themselves.

I happened on the "Max Headroom: 20 minutes into the future" film on the cable channel Cinemax by accident in 1986 or so. The story, the setting, and the characters drew me in and I was blown away. It had the dreary, rainy, dark mood of "Blade Runner" and "Alien" with a touch of film noir where everyone smokes and the surrounding city is dirty and decaying. The cautionary tale of corporate control is dead on target even becoming more true than when this film came out.There is an underground of people who don't exist - called 'Blanks' - and others who kidnap and kill people to sell their organs at the local tissue collection agencies.Amongst this backdrop is Edison Carter - played by Matt Frewer - star reporter for Network 23. He uncovers evidence that his employer is killing viewers in an effort to generate more ad revenue. Instead of "killing the story" as happens today, the bosses decide to kill Edison. They have a problem in doing this however. Being that Edison is the star of the network, if he dies then people will know something is up. Enter teen genius Bryce Lynch - played by Paul Spurrier - who does his best thinking while taking a bath, downloads Edison's brain into a computer. He uses that to create a computer version of Edison in hopes of fooling the viewers.All is not well when virtual Edison takes the name Max Headroom and escapes the control of Lynch and Network 23.Helped by the lovely Theora Jones - played by Amanda Pays - and the leader of the Blanks, Blank Reg - played by William Morgan Sheppard - Max puts the screws on Network 23 and the whole corporate control culture.Frewer is a hoot as Max. His zingers through out the movie help lighten the dark tones and Max is not just a computer clone of Edison. Max is how Edison wishes he could be.Pays is lovely as Edison's and later Max's producer. She and Max have a good relationship.Sheppard's Blank Reg is an aging punk rocker with a Mohawk to boot. He has it all figured out.If you get a chance to see this movie then do it. You won't be sorry.

Like the TV show that followed it, the "Max Headroom" movie was a great grim look into a bleak, Blade-Runner-esque future ruled by corporations who keep the proletariat down by anesthetizing them with junk food and mind-numbing television pageantry. The parallels are frightening, or haven't you seen a Jerry Springer audience lately? The UK movie is, if anything, even grittier and more creepy than the eventual US pilot and TV series. It's out of print, but well worth searching out -- a dramatic, thought-provoking example of everything that's good about science fiction.