The year is 1995, and all the cool kids are going to the arcade and playing a virtual reality laser-tag game. Kyle Baxter (Ethan Embry) is one of the best laser-tag players in the country and is on the verge of winning a nationwide contest when he gets taken out by another player, a girl named Jamie (Cassidy Rae, who every teenage male in the ’90s had a crush on at some point). Kyle’s friend, Zach (Chace Quinn), uses his hacking skills to make it appear as if Kyle won anyway. Kyle’s prize is an Evolver, a robot that will allow Kyle and his friends to play the laser-tag game in real life. The only problem is that Evolver takes the idea of winning very seriously. Each time Evolver is defeated, it “evolves.” It learns from its mistakes. It uses new weapons. It refuses to stop until it can say, “Kill confirmed.”
Evolver is a mix of Child’s Play and The Terminator. Evolver eventually evolves to the point where it can say cheesy one-liners before killing someone. When someone tells it that the game is over, Evolver replies, “The game is not over.” The main problem with the film is that Evolver is such a bulky and awkward robot that it’s hard to believe it could actually defeat anyone. The people who are killed by Evolver usually fall victim because they’re too dumb to step aside when Evolver approaches them. The best thing about Evolver is that it does accurately represent how most people played video games in the ’90s. The first day, you would be really excited and you couldn’t wait to play every chance you got. By the third day, you were bored and ready to get back to doing whatever it was you were doing to begin with. Not all games were as exciting as Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge.
If the voice of Evolver sounds familiar, that’s because it was supplied by none other than William H. Macy. A year later, Macy would star in Fargo, and he would presumably never have to voice another angry robot again.
