Strange Days

The basic premise of "Strange Days" rips off the 1983 sci-fi thriller "Brainstorm."

In "Brainstorm," scientists Christopher Walken and Louise Fletcher create a headset that can record point-of-view thoughts, dreams, memories and actions, which can then be played back for other people, so they can "feel" the same experiences. It's like the ultimate virtual-reality — sort of actual-reality.

For "Strange Days," co-writer/co-producer James Cameron (the "Terminator" films, "Aliens") and director Kathryn Bigelow ("Point Break," "Blue Steel") have stolen the device and upped the ante.

Here, the setting is futuristic Los Angeles on New Year's Eve 1999 — just hours before the year 2000 chimes in. The digital-recording headset has been around awhile — but it's illegal and can only be purchased on the black market. And like a drug, it's addicting.

While "Brainstorm" explored the thrill-ride, sexual and deadly possibilities of such an invention, "Strange Days" gives us a serial-killer's point of view.

Someone is donning the headset to record his victims as he commits rape and murder. If that isn't sick enough, he also puts a headset on each victim, so she will experience the horrifying sensations of rape and murder with even greater intensity.

It's the ultimate "blackjack," or "snuff film," and petty criminal/

ex-cop Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes, of "Schindler's List" and "Quiz Show"), who deals "clips" to "wireheads," doesn't like snuff films — especially when he is implicated in the murders.

Meanwhile, a militant rap star named Jeriko One (Glenn Plum-mer) has been murdered, execution-style, causing racial tensions in Los Angeles to become far more strained than usual. And somehow the two events are linked.

So, Lenny hits the streets to try and find the answers to his myriad questions, as he is beat up, framed for murder and subjected to repeated viewings of these graphic rape-murders.

Unfortunately, the audience is also subjected to the same unpleasantness, and after awhile "Strange Days" becomes merely a predictable parade of senses-assaulting indignities with a surprisingly conventional, by-the-numbers story.

Plotwise, there isn't much, except that Lenny has an unrestrained obsession with his former girlfriend Faith (Juliette Lewis, at her most spacey and unappealing), which causes him to be repeatedly beaten up by the bodyguards of her current boyfriend, high-rolling record-producer Philo Gant (Michael Wincott). Lenny also recruits his best friends, Max (Tom Size-more), a down-on-his-luck private eye, and Mace (Angela Bas-sett), a security guard/limo driver who is surprisingly adept at kung fu, to help him solve the mystery.