Simone: "Excuse Me, I Seem To Have Come Down With The Plague."

The idea of a virtual idol certainly has progressed a long way, hasn't it? The first time I remember it being addressed in a major way, it was in the form of Sharon Apple, virtual antagonist from the animated movie Macross Plus.

Then came William Gibson's book Idoru a book about a virtual pop star named Rei Toei. The events of this partially spill into Gibson's next book, All Tomorrow's Parties.

Then in Japan, they actually made a virtual idol, named Kyoko, if memory serves me correctly, and she got sold to some European company.

Now Hollywood gets the idea to make a movie about it, and *bam* opening this weekend is, Simone. (By the way, I will not be referring to the movie with its stupid 1s and 0s in the title. I find it hysterically funny that Hollywood finds itself borrowing its new hipness from the same style of writing predominantly used by the lowest people on the social totem pole, people on the internet who aren't even liked by other people on the internet.)

Casting all notions of borrowed work aside, Simone ends up actually being a semi-interesting film. What bugs me about the film is that the director made it just tongue-in-cheek enough so that you never really know for sure, "Is he making fun of everyone else, or just an idiot?"

I'm going to go with a little of both, but be warned, since I was unable to watch the movie without having this conundrum constantly thrown at me, it did detract a bit from the entertainment experience.

The movie starts out with Al Pacino's character, hard luck director Viktor Taransky at his wit's end, he's picking out cherry Mike & Ike's from a candy dish, when Nicola Anders (Winona Ryder, her character's name is an obvious play on the director's name, Andrew Niccol.) has just left his movie in a huff.

With the movie essentially in the can, and Anders threatening to sue if she's even in a single frame, Taransky has nothing left to do. He vows to his daughter that he will finish the film, and sets about finding a way to do so.

Enter the sledgehammer of plot! All of a sudden whilst packing all the film of his movie into the car, Viktor is met by a computer programmer who recognizes him.

Apparently, his distaste for human actors has earned Pacino this programmer's respect and he wants to give him his life's work. A computer program that can piece together other people and basically, act.

Viktor blows the guy off, until he's out of options and the programmer is dead...from an inoperable eye tumor. Viktor takes the hard drive and finishes his movie.

The public develops an unhealthy love and following for the character, and the rest winds its way to the predictable outcome.

There are moments of brief laughter, mainly provided by inopportune moments in the film's pacing or mood, but also from the reporter of the variety magazine that's trying to track down dirt on Simone.

There are moments of writhing agony mostly provided by Jay Mohr. I hate Jay Mohr. He cannot act. At all. All he does in every single movie he's been in is play one of two people: Jerk, and Conceited Jerk. For the Conceited Jerk role, Jay will throw out a few jokes, which are predictably not funny. For the Jerk role, Jay just shows up and plays himself. No make-up or costume work needed. Jay plays a Jerk in this movie, Simone's co-star Hal Sinclair.

The people that might have the most attachment to this movie, people who like computers and science fiction, are going to feel completely blown off, because computers and science fiction are completely ignored. The worst offenses being that CG Simone constantly looks noticably different.

Nevermind all the confusion that anyone who has used a computer in the last 10 years would have to feel seeing Al Pacino's character slide a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk into a computer that allows for you just drop in a hard drive. Seriously people...have you turned on a computer? Ever? I haven't seen a 5 1/4 floppy since high school, and I haven't USED one since the 6th grade.

For what it's worth though, I can't say anything too bad about the movie. It was fun in parts, but mainly just OK. Kinda the way I felt when I watched Cable Guy. I felt like I spent 2 hours killing time. Didn't notice it while I was sitting there...but I notice it now.

Nothing memorably good, a couple memorably bad things. But seriously, what else are you going to see this weekend that you haven't already? Pluto Nash? If that's the case, bring a friend...and double the box office receipts for that location.