Virtuosity is a 1995 American science fiction action film directed by Brett Leonard and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.

In the year 1999, Barnes and John Donovan are testing a virtual reality system designed for training police officers.

SID (short for Sadistic, Intelligent, Dangerous, a VR amalgam of the most violent serial killers throughout history) causes Donovan to go into shock, killing him.

After killing a family along with a group of security guards, SID heads over to the Media Zone, a local nightclub, where he takes hostages.

The next day, SID begins a killing spree at the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium where a UFC match is taking place.

Washington restructured much of the story and dialogue during filming, entirely removing a romantic subtext between the Lt. Barnes and Dr. Carter characters from the original script.

[3] The soundtrack was released on MCA imprint Radioactive Records and contained music from Peter Gabriel, The Heads, Tricky and Live, among others.

The website's consensus reads: "Woefully deficient in thrills or common sense, Virtuosity strands its talented stars in a story whose vision of the future is depressingly short on imagination.

"[6] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 39 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.

[7] Roger Ebert, however, wrote that the movie was "filled with bright ideas and fresh thinking" and "still finds surprises" despite a somewhat clichéd premise.