I didn’t know this movie existed because I was a child when it came out in 1995.

But thank God for Twitter.

It led me straight to this movie and for starters, some things didn’t age well.

I am barely 2 minutes into Strange Days and this is what I am hearing:

Yes, that is a white man uttering those words to an East Asian man.

So when I saw this scene I was like “Oh shit, he’s going to end up in a hospital”

Because let’s be for real the main character is not going to die at the start of the movie.

However, it was even better…

It was only a game.

He was playing some virtual reality game but the headset was this tragic contraption which in 1995, they thought the future VR headset would look like.

The random cuts to the chaos as Lenny (Ralph Fiennes) drives down the street are hilarious.

Look at these two women attacking Santa.

What the hell did he do to warrant this?

The funniest dialogue about the rapture ensued while Lenny was driving. Just read the captions on these screenshots:

For context: The caller is a woman while the radio presenter is a man.

She tells him that they’re in the last days and he asks her questions to understand what she means:

She agrees that it is the rapture and that the signs are everywhere.

So he asks how much time they have left and she says rapture is happening 31st December 1999.

Then he gets cheeky trying to know the exact timezone the supposed New Year’s Eve rapture would be occurring and she replies with “I pray for you all”

That was funny.

My guy is watching VR porno…

Inside a filthy toilet.

Bruv, don’t you have a home where you can watch your X-rated videos in?

So… in this virtual reality porno SIMS thing he is watching, Lenny chose to be a woman.

Those are VR breasts being titillated by a virtual reality character.

I guess it is safe to say that he is an electronic lesbian.

His VR device is called SQUID.

It’s the casual law enforcement abuse for me. Like why did this police officer think this was necessary?

Dude, just run the path without assaulting someone on your way down the stairs.

I have questions about this

He said the “suspect” was a black male. So why then was this the person he was trying to arrest?

The police now have the SQUID.

Lenny gave it to some guy earlier and perhaps the guy gave it to this woman whom the police snatched the wig off her head.

I’m going to guess that this woman was Lenny’s girlfriend and she died

He is watching videos of her with a drink in hand.

Look at him touching virtual breasts.

A finished man. A conquered soul.

Knowing that Ralph Fiennes was in Conclave, this line makes me giggle.

I liked how they introduced Angela Bassett’s character.

There is something very Tupac about this Jeriko One character.

She is Mace.

So that woman Lenny was watching in his SQUID is not dead. She left him for this guy;

His name is Philo Gant.

This joke was slick as hell.

I miss dialogues like these:

LEGENDARY.

Lenny made Mr Fumitsu go to a different club than he intended, only for him to tell the man “bye”.

“Bye,” why? Aren’t you supposed to spend all that time with Mr Fumitsu? You brought him here.

This club is Sodom and Gomorrah

There she is, alive and with Philo Gant.

and he brought Mr Fumitsu to the depths of hell to find her.

Dude, move on!

Lenny is a ghetto desperado. He was so desperate to talk to Faith he snuck back into the club despite Philo Gant throwing him out.

Faith is also a musician.

There is a rapist-killer on the loose using the VR set to wreak havoc.

This is disgusting. I have a feeling that the person responsible is Lenny’s friend, Max.

Why is Max standing this close to Mace?

Is this a clue that he is the rapist-killer?

I hate Philo Gant, he is an asshole.

So, Lenny and Mace met when her husband was arrested for what I cannot recall he did.

Lenny was the police officer reading a story to her son, Zander to distract him from what was happening.

It is the day of the rapture.

Another mail for Lenny. I hope it isn’t as cursed as the rapist one before it.

It is cursed.

And the rapist-killer was inside Lenny’s home this time. The person broke into Lenny’s flat whilst he was asleep.

With how this movie started, this was not the route I thought it would go.

Not in the slightest.

I’m going to make a bet that this fucker is watching porn.

I was wrong. He was watching the video the rapist-killer made of himself inside Lenny’s home.

These police officers are evil.

No way this motherfucker wants to burn them alive inside the vehicle.

Jesus!

Once I catch these two, it’s on sight.

Their deaths better be long, drawn out and painful.

The car is on fire and Lenny and Mace are inside.

I am stressed.

Mace is THAT GIRL! She is smart, she is resourceful and she is brave. I love her!

Do you know what she did when those motherfuckers set them on fire?

BAM!
She drove into the river.

More than halfway into this movie, he knows the killer but they are not showing us who the killer is.

Why?!

See…?

Even Mace wants to know.

Lenny doesn’t want to tell her. He wants Mace to see it for herself.

Does it involve her son?

This scene was shot in 1995 about police brutality…

30 years later and NOTHING has changed.

Now it all makes sense why the police said at the start of the movie that the suspect was a “black male”.

I need a minute.

So Philo knew about it and burned the tape?

Fuck him!

Lenny tried to save his love “Faith” but he couldn’t. Philo caught up to him and smash a bottle on his head.

Mace while tending to his wounds, dragged Lenny for being a…

When I said this motherfucker Max killed Iris, I meant it.
He told Lenny to work a trade with Philo: Lenny should give Philo the tape and see what happens.

After this statement, if it doesn’t click for Lenny that Max is the rapist-killer, I don’t know what will.

Sadly, it didn’t click for Lenny the dumbfuck. On the bright side, however, Mace figured it out.

But she decided to go anyway because she cares about her friend, Lenny and his delusions of grandeur about Faith.

Look at him smiling like an idiot.

Lenny saw Mace in a dress and said:

Of course, she does.

Not them having a Fuji interlude at the New Year’s Party?

Alright.

Lord! Not another cursed mail from Max again.

Didn’t I say Philo was not the bad guy?

Look at him. Max killed him. For all I know, Max and Faith are in this shit together.

Look at him in pain having to watch Max rape Faith.

Max is Satan.

Well well well now what do we have here?

I said it. I knew it had to be Max. The way he stood behind Mace with zero respect for boundaries told me all I needed to know.

Oh… there’s more.

That’s three for three.

Lenny the pussy-whipped-sorry-ass-motherfucker was hung up on Faith while she was fucking and plotting with his best friend Max.

Lenny was a certified foolish man.

Oh no, Max is here to kill Lenny

I guess I was wrong. Faith saved Lenny from Max trying to kill him.

I guess Faith is just an opportunist who has learned to use her body to get what she wants.

Max is a squid addict. He’s had it in a wig this whole time living life like a psycho:

and just like that, Max fell to his death.

The Steckler guy is a serial killer. He opened fire in a crowd and shot several people just because he wanted to kill Mace.

The commissioner watched the tape and arrested Steckler and Bozo.

I wish someone tortured them to death.

Bozo killed himself.

I respect it. He did us and all the taxpayers who would have funded his prison time a favour.

Steckler, please follow suit. Stab yourself in the gut.

I’m tired of Steckler. He is a FUCKING psycho. So his response to his partner killing himself is to murder someone else?

They better empty a magazine on his ass.

There it is…

Jeriko One’s shooting was a lynching. This KKK police officer murdered a black man because he is a RACIST.

And now he wants to murder Mace for the same reason.

As StecKKKler was about to shoot Mace, the other police officers at the scene emptied magazines on his body.

And Lenny used his body as a shield to protect Mace.

He was ready to die for her. Somebody hold me…

Faith was arrested.

I guess it was for the murder of Philo.

Lenny and Mace said goodbye to each other but he couldn’t let her go just like that.

They kissed.

The end

Final Thoughts

This movie was an 8 over 10 for me. When it started, I didn’t know where it was going to go but eventually, it made sense and I loved EVERY BIT OF IT.

I miss movies that used to look like this. So many scenes looked like moving pictures and the story was complex but yet so simple at the core of it.

If you haven’t seen this movie please do, it is a wonderful holiday movie you won’t want to miss.