The charge: Spence is Spence no more - he’s an alien replicant, who believes that he’s Spence.ĭ’Onofrio delivers the grimness with enough brio to convince Nelson and probably most of the audience. But things suddenly turn upside down in pic’s most startling scene as security chief Hathaway (Vincent D’Onofrio) suddenly zaps and drugs Spence and arrests him. The war’s latest weapon, a Spence creation for which he has trepidation a la Robert Oppenheimer and his nuke, is about to be presented to the ruling chancellor (Lindsay Crouse), and Spence and pal Nelson (Tony Shalhoub) are feeling the pressure. Spence and Maya’s home is replete with voice-activated creature comforts, while the outside world is under a giant shield to ward off invading Centauri. In the year 2079, Spence is happily married to Maya (Madeleine Stowe), a doctor at the Veterans Hospital in the center of an unnamed city that looks as if it was designed by an architect geek who read too many illustrated science fiction tomes. Something like the invading beings in “Independence Day” but without the apparent instinct for overwhelming force, the Centauri remain unseen throughout pic but their power is felt through their ability to kill people and replace them “Body Snatcher”-like in an identical form, only with a ticking nuclear bomb encased in the heart chamber. In the end, alas, the obvious interests of an actor of Sinise’s range and depth are subsumed to the blunt demands of a standardized chase movie.Ī brief prologue establishes weapons designer Spence Olham (Sinise) as the son of a father who died in the human race’s battle against theCentauri, a highly developed and aggressive alien force intent on controlling Earth.

Indeed, it reflects the upfront involvement of star Gary Sinise - in one of his rare lead outings - also serving as producer alongside Fleder. On Dimension’s shelf since it was shot two years ago, before Fleder’s similarly uninteresting contempo thriller, “Don’t Say a Word,” production is hardly the kind of embarrassment that such dust-collectors usually portend.

Impostor by Philip K. Dick