MEGAVILLE. Science fiction in the spirit of Total Recall

Megaville is, above all, science fiction of ideas rather than special effects.

In an unspecified future, Earth is divided between two empires: the capitalist Megaville and the totalitarian Hemisphere. The newest form of entertainment in Megaville is the game Dream-A-Life, which allows people to live alternative lives in virtual reality. Meanwhile, in Hemisphere, the ruling group CKS has banned games, films, television, radio, and other media, with order enforced by special Media Police units. One of their officers—Raymond Palinov—suffers from sensory overload caused by regular exposure to media, resulting in hallucinations, nightmares, and disturbing memories. Despite this, his superiors assign him a dangerous espionage mission in Megaville; in order to infiltrate its underworld, Palinov assumes a new identity and establishes contact with the terrorist Christine and the criminal Newman.

Megaville is the only theatrical feature film directed by Peter Lehner, who also worked on three episodes of the TV series Eurocops (1993–1994) and the television film Beichtstuhl der Begierde (1997). Filming took place in Los Angeles and Oakland in 1990; the grim city hall in Oakland—damaged by an earthquake—was used as the CKS headquarters. The main roles were played by Billy Zane (Palinov/Jensen), J.C. Quinn (Newman), Kristen Cloke (Christine), Daniel J. Travanti (Duprell), and Grace Zabriskie (Palinov’s mother). Notably, it was the first film edited independently by Pietro Scalia, later known for his collaborations with Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone, and Bernardo Bertolucci. Megaville premiered in October 1990 at the Internationale Hofer Filmtage, and the following year competed for Best Film at Italy’s Mystfest [losing to Lovers (1991) by Vicente Aranda].

The low budget made special effects impossible, so Megaville relies primarily on ideas—borrowed from literature (Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick), cinema (Videodrome [1983] by David Cronenberg, Brazil [1985] by Terry Gilliam), and global geopolitics (the conflict between Hemisphere and Megaville as an allusion to the Cold War between the USSR and the USA). The result is a science-fiction thriller with elements of cyberpunk and noir—a weaker version of Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1990), itself an adaptation of a Dick story. Some of the themes explored by Lehner proved surprisingly prophetic and may even be more relevant today than in 1990. However, they remain buried beneath layers of convoluted plotting, inconsistent narration, and second-rate acting.