Last week I reported that Scanners II favored entertainment over interesting ideas, resulting in a noticeably inferior film to the 1981 classic. Scanners III: The Takeover abandons ideas altogether, but takes up the slack with fine cheese and a dynamite villain in the form of Polish actress Liliana Komorowska. The filmmakers knew exactly what she brought to the table and abandoned all pretense that this movie was about the purported hero. In fact, the hero is initially sidelined so that Komorowska can carry the bulk of the plot as both villain and protagonist. Scanners II may be the better sequel, from a filmmaking standpoint, but I much prefer this one because it gives the lizard brain exactly what it wants… and my lizard brain wants more Komorowska.
The film opens with a scanner psychically hurling a guy dressed as Santa Claus through a high rise window. A little girl walking down the sidewalk points to the sky and says, “Look, Mommy! It’s Santa!” At which point the man’s body smashes onto the pavement directly in front of her. (What also went out the window was my ability to review this movie in any kind of objective manner because this is the kind of movie I live for.) The scanner responsible for the accident is devastated that he killed his friend so he packs up and leaves America to do some soul searching.
So the original film featured a drug called Ephemerol, Scanners II introduced the variant EPH-2, and, in true uniform fashion, the third film in the series gives us EPH-3. (This reminds me of how the logo worn by the characters in Ghostbusters 2 is posing with two fingers as if its designer somehow knew they were living in a sequel. Or perhaps the logo itself is sentient?) EPH-3 now comes in the form of a dermal patch worn behind the ear. When Komorowska’s Helena Monet (Alex’s adoptive sister) learns that her father figure is planning to take the drug to clinical trials, she decides she can’t wait and administers the patch to herself.
The next day, the psychic voices that normally torment Helena’s scanner mind have suddenly become manageable. She feels good, in a bad way, using her telekinetic powers to explode an annoying pigeon. It isn’t long before she pays a visit to the mad scientist who abused her as a child, freeing his current test subjects and supplying them with enough EPH-3 that they become loyal to her plight. Unlike the lousy villain of the previous film, Helena’s pattern of violence is strategic. Eventually she installs herself as the CEO of her father’s pharmaceutical corporation to ensure a steady supply of the miracle drug.
Unfortunately for Helena (and for those of us rooting for her), Alex returns home after a two-year stay in a Thai monastery. As the older sibling, Alex poses a challenge to Helena’s control of the corporation. Yes, the movie feels like it’s veering into routine territory as it clumsily folds Alex back into the plot, but thankfully it culminates in an extravagant but swift finale. As Species knew that it was Natasha Henstridge’s movie, Scanners III knows that it is Komorowska’s. Hell, I think I enjoyed this one more than Species.
