S1m0ne

Beneath the seemingly shrewd facade of this movie-biz farce--about a computer-generated actress taking Hollywood by storm because nobody knows she's not real--lies a plot largely cobbled together from flat and uncreative ideas. The brainchild of otherwise inventive writer-director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, The Truman Show screenplay), who plucked the picture's concept out of the film industry's paranoid collective subconscious, S1m0ne stars Al Pacino as a washed-up and somewhat neurotic director who replaces a petulant lead actress with a lifelike computer simulation that fools the world and becomes a superstar. Most of the movie consists of prosaic old sitcom-style gags revolving around Pacino trying to maintain The Big Lie. "She's a computer...addict!" he lies to studio executives in a near-confession. "She's extremely agoraphobic," he says when asked why she's never seen in public. It's basically a one-joke movie about the shallowness of the Hollywood system, and the farfetched, Catch-22 last act takes the movie's themes to an extreme, requiring far more suspension of disbelief than Niccol earns with the stylish but pallid story that precedes it. Optional, at best. [Note: DVD extras include an eight-minute “Cyber Stardom” synopsis featurette, a seven-minute “Simulating Simone” featurette on visual effects, 19 deleted/alternate scenes with an option to watch the scenes during the film, and two trailers. Bottom line: a standard extras package for a disappointing film.] (R. Blackwelder)