In the future, all the resorts along the remaining piece of California coastline will band together under the banner of the Pacifica Corporation. Holding a monopoly over this prime vacation destination is bad enough, but to ensure their elite clientele's safety and happiness, they sweep up the criminals, troublemakers and riff raff and deposit them in a prison, K314, on a remote island off the coast of their manmade paradise. Things go well for awhile, that is until a prison-wide riot in 1999 sends the guards and staff running for their lives and the Pacifica Corporation washing their hands of the whole affair, leaving the remaining inmates to starve to death. Apparently, there were enough resources on the island for the surviving inmates to live and breed, but not start their own society a la Martin Campbell's 1994 Future Prison epic, No Escape.

Trust me when I say I'm making it sound cooler than it really is, since we only learn about all of this from on-screen text, rather than seeing any cool footage "future" footage. We're introduced to Eve (Audie England) and her boyfriend Vegas (Costas Mandylor) as they scavenge for food in the ruins of the prison. Encountering a former inmate, Andre (complete with a deadly tracking implant), who decides he's going to force them to help him escape on a flimsy rubber raft. Hmmm, so he has to force them to escape, really? Like he couldn't have just said, "Hey, would you guys mind helping me row to freedom on this raft I've got over here?" As if that piece of illogic isn't enough, Andre's file says he was born in 1992, but he easily looks to be in his mid to late forties.

The escapees make it to the mainland, but not before alerting the Pacifica Security Chief, who promptly enlists the aid of deadly bounty hunter, Nick (Billy Wirth) to take them down. Vegas is lost at sea and Eve triggers Andre's implant, killing him. She then has to figure out how to fit in with "society" and heads towards "civilization." After dispatching a lecherous beach bum and taking his cash, Eve encounters a Sapphic savior in the form of Maria (Meredith Salenger). Maria is recently divorced, lonely and allows her mood to be dictated by a daily dose of medication. She teaches Eve how to live in the modern world and seems especially keen on instructing her in the use of a Virtual Reality headset that links her with fellow cyber-swingers on an endless train of fun, literally!

After Maria's impromptu and unexplained suicide, Eve decides to steal her identity and pursue a life of her own. Nick tracks her down and begins questioning her in the death of the beach comber, as well as trying to discover if she's one of the escapees. As is the norm for many of these films, the hunter and hunted quickly become romantically involved, both in reality as well as the virtual world. Vegas eventually reappears and Eve must decide whether to remain true to her old beau or to hook up with Nick, the man trying to kill her. After this difficult decision we're then treated to a flash forward of 3 years further into the future for an epilogue, followed by the foreboding and quite stupid end shot of the island prison and the text "An Unknown Number of Children Remain on K314." As if to say there are going to be more stories to tell. Puh-lease.

The whole thing is a waste of time, from the made-for-TV violence, the clichéd visions of the future, the appalling lack of full-on nudity and the campy cameos supplied by Morgan Fairchild, Joel Grey and Jessica Alba, pre-Dark Angel, as a "young Eve" in a flashback. Normally I wouldn't bring up nudity, or in this case the lack thereof, but for a movie of this caliber, by which I mean low, they wasted a perfect opportunity to at least explore one of the concepts they introduced. Namely, that of a virtual reality network of anonymous sex partners that doesn't just span the globe, but also seems to be a perfectly acceptable form of home entertainment. The few trysts that we witness in this VR world are shockingly tame, and the one real life encounter isn't much better. They did bring in a new director for re-shoots, so perhaps this plotline was sacrificed in favor of making yet another boring "future" movie.

The DVD:

Picture: Venus Rising, unsurprisingly, is presented in a 1.33:1 full screen presentation. Overall, the image is fine, but also nothing to write home about. The visual effects have aged terribly since the film's original release (1995).

Audio: The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track sounds fine.

Extras: The only Extra Features on this DVD, if you can call them that, are trailers for Resident Evil, Underworld and Hellboy.

Conclusion: Not to beat a dead horse, but if one of your main plotlines is about a "future" form of recreation involving a virtual reality network set up exclusively for people to have sex with one another, than you really should have a lot more sex in your film. Sadly, that is just not the case here. That, coupled with jarring plot twists, shoddy character development and an ending this side of… well, I can't recall an ending as confusing and uneventful as this one, makes this a definite pass. Skip It.