Future cop Jack Deth is brought out of retirement to track down his old nemesis, a wretched megalomaniac called Whistler. Whistler and his army of trancers (zombie-minded slaves) have escaped into the past, 1980's Los Angeles to be exact, with the intention of murdering the ancestors of the council that have imprisoned him. Well the council are none to pleased about that so they send Trooper Deth back into the body of one of his own ancestors Phil Deth to stop him. With the help of Leena (Helen Hunt) Jack will not only have to deal with Whistler and his trancers but also the wacky ways of the 1980's.

This is the original Trancers movie, the movie that gave us Jack Deth, one of the coolest b-movie cops ever to grace the silver screen. Watching Trancers again it sure has aged but retains much of the charm that made it a classic sci-fi in the first place.

The 80's power fashion is in full swing here, the special effects of what there are, are very old looking now and they've become in themselves a bit of a 'feature' of the movie. The sequence involving 'slowed-time' shows bullets travelling at a reduced speed while Jack is still at normal speed, very much akin to bullet time in The Matrix. Whilst obviously the implementation is nowhere as sophisticated as The Matrix, for a 1980's b-movie it is none the less impressive.

The storyline itself is a bit thin truth be told and the trancers themselves are a bit, well, 'uninspired'. To be honest i'm still not sure exactly what a trancer really is. Probably the best description is a slave human that takes on a disheveled look when they're cover is blown. Other than that there's really nothing else worth mentioning about them.

Without doubt the strongest aspects of Trancers are the characters and the acting. The characters are very stereotypical but the way in which actors like Tim Thomerson and Helen Hunt (who seem to have a good chemistry) bring the characters to life makes all the difference and really if the acting standard in this flick had been poor i think Trancers would have flopped - big time.

One thing worth mentioning and it's nothing to do with the movie itself, is the visual/audio quality of the current DVD transfer that's available. It's awful, truly awful and a cult classic movie like this deserves better quite frankly. Supposedly they've taken this transfer directly from the old laserdisc version that was released and it shows. Echo Bridge have a new release coming up of Trancers in the USA, this is the same transfer by all accounts so beware.

All things considered Trancers is an awesome sci-fi b-movie with solid acting and decent special effects (for it's time), i have no issues what so ever recommending this one. Just beware the DVD issues that are there, heck it may even be worth your while waiting to see if this one gets a decent bluray treatment. Until then i'll make do with my old DVD.