FreeJack Review

FreeJack
Auto racer Alex Furlong is snatched by time travel, a split second before a fatal explosion, by Vasendak's 21st-century team of techies

by Jenny Cooney |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 1992

Running Time:

105 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

FreeJack

An expensive adaptation of Robert Sheckley's novel Immortality Inc., Freejack manages to steal from Logan's Run, Blade Runner and Terminator 2 and somehow still come up with a woefully poor and cheap-looking imitation.

The story, such as it is, centres around Alex Furlong (Estevez), plucked from his race car seconds before crashing and hurled into the year 2009, where he discovers, after escaping a lobotomy, that he is being pursued by a pack of bizarre 21st century bounty hunters led by the ruthless Vacendak (Jagger).

The ruling corporation of the future, led by "Mac" McCandless (Hopkins) has, apparently, mastered the art of plucking doomed but healthy bodies — freejacks — from the past into the future so that their brains can be replaced with those belonging to ageing billionaires who pay well for the procedure.

Estevez fails miserably at coming anywhere close to carrying the movie, Hopkins at least appears to be enjoying his phoned-in performance, while Jagger stalks his prey with a constant pout of those simian lips and proves yet again that he really does belong in rock and roll.

Indeed, the only bright spot in the film is Amanda Plummer — the wacky object of Robin Williams' desire in The Fisher King — with a brief but memorable cameo here as a futuristic nun who swears like a trooper, carries around a rifle and thinks turning the other cheek is kicking a guy in the balls.

By ignoring the tone of the movie she's in, Plummer man­ages to rise above it. Then again, with the standard of this movie, that doesn't require that much effort.
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