Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you an action, crime, sci-fi film from 2016, titled Virtual Revolution.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
It's the year 2047, considered a century of technological revolution.
Humanity has reached important milestones like flying cars and robots, but what has
changed society the most is the creation of virtual worlds called verses that feel as
authentic as reality itself.
Seventy-five percent of the population, known as the Connected, don't care about their real
lives anymore and spend their entire day online, so towns and cities belong to a minority.
There are others who spend half their time online and half in the real world, those are
called Hybrids.
In Neo Paris lives shadow agent Nash Trenton, a Hybrid haunted by the death of his love
Helena in a virus attack a few years back.
He's part of an adventuring party in a fantasy verse where they fight bad guys with swords,
bows, and magic.
One of the party members, Dalwyn, is in a relationship with him even if they don't know
each other in the real world.
One evening, after the group successfully defeats a powerful mage, Nash logs out a bit
earlier than usual because he's summoned by Dina, an executive from Synternis Corporation,
which is one of the major companies in charge of the verses.
One hundred forty-eight players have been killed in a computer virus attack perpetrated
by an insurgent group called Necromancers, so Dina wants Nash to find out the identities
of those insurgents.
While it's true the attacks and the body count have become much worse, calling Interpol isn't
an option, their systems get hacked all the time and if they got involved, Synternis wouldn't
be able to target the Necromancers directly.
Nash visits the location behind the IP address that released the virus, it's easy for him
to break in because the streets are empty thanks to everyone being inside playing their
games.
It's an old abandoned building and Nash finds nothing inside but trash, until he hears a
noise.
With his gun at the ready, he follows the sound he heard and is suddenly jumped on by
a big bald man, and the two of them begin a fistfight.
After many punches, kicks, and throws against the wall, the man overpowers Nash and, after
dropping him on the floor, steals his ID before leaving.
Nash's next destination is in a dubious neighborhood with actual people on the streets offering
a variety of shady services.
There, Nash visits his friend and former brother-in-law Morel, who happens to be an expert hacker.
After Morel stitches him up, Nash asks him to hack into Interpol's systems and get him
the security camera records from the building he just visited so he can identify the guy
that beat him up.
Morel accepts in exchange for illegal hardware that Nash can obtain from his clients.
Nash angrily leaves when Morel suddenly brings up Helena, making the conversation awkward
even if Nash knows Morel is right to think there's something off with his sister's death.
Sometime later, Nash is spending his evening with Dalwyn in the game when he's interrupted
by the doorbell in the real world.
It's Morel, bringing him news about the security camera records.
Sadly, no big bald man has walked in front of the camera; however, he did find a guy
who appeared several times during the last three days before Nash's arrival, although
he didn't appear to be a fighter.
All this information has been put in a flash drive that Nash takes to Dina, who uses the
company's software to identify the mysterious man: his name is Leonard Lorenz, and they
have his address as well, so Nash goes to pay him a visit.
He enters the apartment through the window and finds Leonard connected to the virtual
world.
He isn't alone, however: the bald man is also there, ready to start another fistfight.
This time though, after all the thrown kicks and punches, Nash doesn't stay still on the
floor when he's thrown there: instead, he takes out his gun and shoots the bald guy.
After shooting Leonard as well and recovering his ID, Nash sits on Leonard's chair and takes
control of his character to work undercover and find more information about the Necromancers.
The avatar turns out to be a blonde woman that is currently in the middle of enjoying
some pleasure in bed with two other girls, Nash pays them no attention and gets the character
dressed before leaving the building with a weapon he found in the room too.
There's a Necromancers soldier waiting outside called Jon, who mentions they've received
orders to go back to headquarters immediately.
The game they're in is a shooter, so Jon and Nash enter the war area and decide to take
advantage of the two factions fighting a giant robot called Cerberus because it means they
won't pay much attention to them.
While crossing an abandoned building, Jon's binoculars stop working, which is proof of
a scrambler machine and therefore, an ambush as well.
There's no other path they can take, though, they need to go as deep as possible into the
PVP zone because it's harder for players to survive there and safer for them since they
won't run into an agent randomly, so they keep going and meet the ambush with open fire.
By making a swift job of covering each other and shooting with outstanding aim, the pair
manages to take down all the regular soldiers, but there's one final enemy left: the boss,
who is now appearing at the end of the hallway and blocking the way.
It's a tall man holding an extra-large machine gun and wearing armor, making him difficult
to kill, but Jon has a plan.
He throws a flash grenade to distract him while Nash walks behind a wall and approaches
him from behind, gaining the opportunity to shoot him directly in the head.
After stealing his ammunition, Jon and Nash run away and manage to reach the Necromancers
headquarters without any more trouble.
Waiting there for them is the person in charge of the whole operation, Camylle, who asks
a subordinate to bring over a beacon before asking them for any news.
They know a mysterious man working solo has visited their buildings, and now they're being
chased by Interpol as well.
Camylle admits they need to change tactics - currently, they're trying to scare gamers
off so they leave their verses, but the media is covering up the deaths and everyone believes
them to be an urban legend.
He doesn't reveal what his new plan is, though, because at that moment, the subordinate brings
over the requested beacon, which prevents Nash from disconnecting.
The soldiers grab Nash's avatar and reveal they've known it's not Leonard in there all
along because he didn't make the rallying sign when he came in.
Camylle punches him, but he knows negative feelings are decreased online, so he sends
his men to log out outside the room and find Nash's body in the real world.
While Camylle explains how much interest politicians and companies have in keeping society in a
vegetative state, Nash takes the chance to headbutt one of the soldiers and activate
the grenade on the belt of the other soldier, which causes an explosion that destroys the
beacon.
He wakes up in the real world just in time to shoot the real Jon and his partner as they
enter the apartment.
Nash visits Morel again to ask him about devices that prevent people from logging out, but
Morel doesn't think that can be done, so instead, Nash gives him the in-game coordinates of
the Necromancers headquarters and asks Morel for the records detailing every person that
has logged in or out in that area.
Their investigation is interrupted when three men from Interpol arrive, so Nash hides while
the guy in charge, Stilson, interrogates his friend.
At first, Morel doesn't want to talk, but after he gets punched by one of the agents,
he starts to confess.
He never mentions Nash's name, though, he just admits having hacked the Interpol database
and selling the information to one of the minor gaming companies, he also works on testing
security systems for the bigger corporations.
Seeing as he didn't find anything important on the camera recordings, the three men leave
after Stilson informs him they'll be requiring his services in the future in exchange for
not arresting him over his illegal hardware.
Nash also leaves after Morel promises to look into those coordinates he gave him.
Thinking the Necromancers still don't know his identity, Nash returns to his apartment
and goes online to have another adventure with his party and enjoy some sweet moments
with Dalwyn.
But once again, he's interrupted by a request from Dina to see him.
She informs him Interpol has been to the company building because they know of the deaths,
and in return, Nash tells her what he's found out thanks to Morel's snooping.
The attacks have been launched only against the three biggest verses companies, but other
than that, the trail has seemed to go cold.
It's been impossible to track down the Necromancers because there are no connections or disconnections
in the system, they always leave a few subordinates online so that they can protect the area from
other players and log in or out elsewhere.
Dina still wants him to solve this as quickly as possible because she doesn't want to have
Interpol around, they may be allies but they aren't friends.
This means the verses companies pay the government their taxes, and that money is used to pay
the Connected's universal income, who in return pay for the game.
For the government, paying for a Connected's little necessities is much cheaper than maintaining
a person living a full life, and the Connected don't usually live longer than forty years
anyway.
After asking Morel to hack into the Interpol database to learn what they know about the
attacks, Nash goes back to his apartment, where he's ambushed by the Necromancers.
He meets the real Camylle, who is actually a woman that tells him he shouldn't work for
Synternis Corporation because they've lied about Helena's death.
It wasn't a Necromancer attack that killed her, it was a virus that Synternis created
and the Necromancers merely adapted for their cause later.
Helena was actually close to the Necromancers, even if she didn't always approve of their
methods, she was still part of them, and that made her a target for Synternis.
Because he's always thought there was something wrong with Helena's death, Nash believes Camylle's
story and accepts to help them, telling them all he knows and preparing a plan to take
care of Interpol.
Stilson and his agents follow one of the Necromancers' men, and Nash helps him lose them by guiding
him through the sewers.
He takes him back to Camylle, who asks him to share with them any information he may
learn from his hacker friend in the future.
When visiting Morel, Nash admits feeling used by both Synternis and the Necromancers, and
Morel points out none of this will bring Helena back before informing him the Interpol will
be soon meeting with a mole they have among Camylle's group.
Nash goes to the meeting point only to be captured by Interpol, who made up the story
about a mole to trick him into coming and ambush him.
Stilson knows Nash is working for both Synternis and the Necromancers, so he wants him to be
an informant for Interpol as well.
However, their negotiations are interrupted by Camylle and her men, who have been following
Nash in case he needed help and now are killing every single Interpol agent in sight.
Now that he's off the radar again, Nash wants to hear about the new plan, and Camylle accepts
to fill him in after returning to his place.
The Necromancers' goal is to free all the Connected.
To achieve it, they're going to use a virus one of their men has created which has the
power to shut down every console until the verses themselves disappear.
This will force people offline and make them go outside again.
There's only one issue: in order to be able to replicate and spread, the virus needs to
be launched from within the matrix of one of the main verses.
This is where Nash comes in: he could easily take the virus into Synternis' main offices
and keep it there while the hackers do their thing.
Camylle promises the virus attacks progressively and by the time it's out there, he won't even
be in the building anymore and they wouldn't be able to track it back to him, so he accepts.
Since there are a few hours left before they start the mission, Nash gets online and meets
with Dalwyn, who is a Connected and doesn't want to put labels on their relationship,
which gives Nash a lot to think about.
Moments later, he visits Dina at the Synternis building and while talking to her, he secretly
activates the device with the virus.
The Necromancers' hackers immediately start working on spreading their attack while Nash
returns home and gets online again for one last adventure with his party, but they're
interrupted by incoming messages from Morel that reveal the hackers' plans and call for
everyone in Neo Paris to stop them.
A furious mob of Connected people that were forced out of the game against their will
reach the Necromancers' location and kill every single one of them before they can destroy
all the verses.
Sometime after the incident was over, Nash is once again summoned by Dina, who suspects
he was the one that brought the virus inside her office but won't get him arrested because
thanks to this they were able to crush the Necromancers.
However, she does sever all the ties between Synternis and Nash on account of his betrayal.
She also tells him Camylle lied to him: the virus that killed Helena was the Necromancers'
improved version, and she had only become close to the group because she was working
for Synternis as an informant.
Not knowing who to believe and to escape these painful thoughts, Nash goes online permanently
and becomes another Connected, deciding to live the rest of his life with Dalwyn and
their party.
Thanks to the money he's earned, he can add features and comforts to his online avatar
to make him enjoy the experience even more fully, and since his brain can't distinguish
between real and virtual, the online life is as good as real.