I've picked up the cold that's been going around our social circle, just in time for the weather to finally warm up. The upside is that when I'm sick I lay around and watch movies without feeling anxious, so Sunday afternoon I dug through my VHS collection of terrible 80's post-apocalyptic films and watched Trancers, a film that manages to rip off not only Bladerunner, but Terminator, and Back to the Future, as well.

Vietnam vet and standup comic Tim Thomerson plays the lead character, Jack Deth, who travels from 2047 back to 1985 to hunt down a criminal mastermind who has traveled in time to kill the ancestors of all the people who annoy him.

Trancers has everything to make you forget your headache and stuffy nose: lousy special effects, improbable plot twists, nonsensical dialogue, absurd shifts in tone, and stars-to-be in demeaning roles (Helen Hunt, here miscast as a teenage punk rocker).

The film only spends about 10% of its time in the apocalyptic future, but there are some nice matte shots of Los Angeles under fifty feet of water. Otherwise, the future looks much like today, just with lots more flexible tubing wrapped around everything.