In a plot taken from early 1930s sci-fi (ie before the Golden Age of Science Fiction) a scientist finds a way to direct radiation at "every gene in the body" in order to get a sneak preview of Humankind 's evolution. Knight Rider's Edward Mulhare is the scientist and a pre-U. N. C. L. E. David McCallum is the simplistic Welsh miner who gets to be Mulhare's guinea pig. The plot is predictable enough: McCallum's evolution takes him from a simple man with a good heart to a soulless Megamind with the globular head to match. It must be said, however, that the good looking young man who could have been simply looking to get a foothold in Hollywood TV, demonstrates here a substantial range. When he first gets higher brain powers he simply drops his regional accent to sound "superintelligent". But in the later stage of megalomania, it's not just "more of the same". McCallum imbues his performance with an element of maturity, so that he really seems to have lived the extra million years of human evolution. It's quite the best acting to be found in such material, and succeeds in lifting it above the banal.
Review of The Sixth Finger
