DNA

Brad Armstrong's sci-fi picture "DNA" exemplifies the filmmaker's craftsmanship, but lacks inspiration. What should have been thrilling plods along for over three hours at a glacial pace -more yawns than "zowies!" elicited.

Early in his directorial career Brad co-directed a far more lively B- level video starring luscious Crystal Gold as a cyborg titled "Cybersex". His career arc resembles mainstream director George Stevens, who in the 1930s piloted many an entertaining little picture like "Alice Adams" & "Swing Time", but by the 1950s and 1960s was making big-budget and comparatively dull epics like "Giant", "Diary of Anne Frank" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told".

Brad plays a coolly villainous scientist/corporate magnate whose Iterum Industries company produces Carbons, temporary replicas of dead people paid for (at exorbitant prices) by the survivors to commune with (or more rightly, have sex with) for 3 days before the clones expire. DNA from the dead person is delivered to Iterum along with diaries, photos and other materials from which to concoct memories for the replicant to make it resemble the original loved one as closely as possible. Brad's uncredited screenplay takes a scene to explain at length the origin of the term "Carbons", as younger audiences have not had the thrill like us old- timers of growing up using carbon paper when typing.

Jessica Drake, elegantly styled to resemble (for me anyway) Jaclyn Smith, is Brad's v.p. Of marketing and development, and the inevitable malfunction of new-model clones is a problem dumped in her lap to deal with. Brad greedily refuses to halt production on the clones, and ultimately pays the price.

Lengthy running time is occasioned by the need to include full-bore sex scenes (7 in total) alongside the wordy dialog scenes. Like other Brad- made "blockbusters" for Wicked Pictures, a second DVD is included to make the project seem like a big deal, but it includes merely a 3-minute BTS and a 90-minute useless "Table Reading" (a ploy he also used for his "The Preacher's Daughter" release), in which only 4 cast members show up for the unenlightening run-through, and most dramatic performer Vanessa Veracruz is missing in action. He pads this "Reading" footage with innumerable excerpts from the finished feature, unnecessary since it's contained on Disk One in its entirety.

Besides the remoteness of Brad's direction, chief failing of "DNA" is the serious miscasting of a principal role: Small Hands as another villain named Miles Dunn. His overacting is terrible, and his full-body Yakuza- styled tattoos (bleeding over on his neck even when fully dressed) should have ruled him ineligible for a role in a futuristic movie (set decades from now) when such a distracting current (circa 2000 or so) skin ink fad has little to do with the story.

Besides Drake, contributing a d.p. To the XXX content, sex scenes are well-performed and fulfill, unfortunately, their prime use as excerpts for other Wicked DVDs as bonus or compilation fodder or website streaming material. Veracruz has a hot lesbian scene with her cloned lover Abigail Mac, and the director indulges himself as usual with a three-way humpfest involving contrasting body types Courtney Taylor (mega-stacked) and cutie Cristi Ann. Contract superstar Asa Akira has a key role as Small Hands' deceased lover, used in the final reels to develop a clumsily executed "stolen diamonds" subplot, while Chanel Preston is effective as a client anxious to be reunited with her man, stolidly played by Tommy Gunn.

The worst blunder of the screenplay has two scenes placed back to back that contradict each other. A big fat lady (uncredited extra) gets her old man back for 72 hours and he died from Alzheimer's, so Jessica warns her about his absence of memories. Yet in the very next scene we get a detailed discussion of how Iterum Industries uses materials supplied by the client to re-create the clone's memories to try and match those of the original. The clone of the old coot is manufactured from his DNA but should have fresh memories not subject to years of degeneration from Alzheimer's since the clone is fresh from the assembly line -so what's up with that, Brad?