Looker DVD: Review By Travis Young

For those who have never heard of this film (myself included before now), Looker' story capitalizes on the popularity of cosmic surgery. Looker is about a plastic surgeon named Larry Roberts who is suspected by the police of killing off some of his former patients. These patients of his wanted the perfect face in order to make it into commercial advertisements, but they find themselves dead not long after they have been operated on. Dr. Roberts must find out who is behind this so he can prove his innocence and stop any further deaths to his girls.

After many years, Looker has finally received the DVD treatment. Though, most people who saw this film when it first came out or some time in between now would probably wonder why. While it's far from being a completely bad film and it does have some interesting concepts, it just doesn't capitalize on them to make a compelling film with good characters. It simply drags along hoping that you still care enough to wonder exactly what's going on. If only the payoff would have been worth the wait, but it's truthfully not. Still, Looker was very insightful when it was originally released and showed a side of commercials and surgery that most had not seen before. For that reason and because it held my interest for quite some time, I have to say Looker is at least worth checking out if you don't mind a slow pace.

Introduction and Commentary by Michael Crichton

Crichton begins the commentary by discussing his amazement with how his ideas of a future for advertisements have become true. At the time, Looker was a sci-fi film, but its not as futuristic in today's time. With shows like Nip/Tuck, we see plastic surgery everyone, when it was really still taboo to discuss in the early 80s. Crichton also discusses the timing of the film and how he decided to take on a film like this. Its a solid commentary and Crichton speaks with a soft voice that makes him easy to listen to.

Widescreen. 16x9 2.4:1. You would think for a film that came out in the 80s that it would look bad now when the scenes of computers came up. However, it really doesn't look that bad. Of course it's dated, but instead of looking terrible, it never took me out of the movie.

Dolby Digital English. Subtitles in English, Languages in French and English. Looker features a good soundtrack and plenty of 80s-sounding beats that make you think of a cheesy horror movie.

The front cover is very interesting and would definitely catch my eye if I saw it on a shelf. The tagline "If looks could kill" doesn't make much sense, though. It gives off the idea that someone is using their good looks to kill others, while in reality the movie is far from that idea.

Michael Crichton's story probably would have worked a lot better as a novel then as a film. It's simply too slow even for its short run-time.