Worst thing you’ll see all week: Cypher

I have watched and enjoyed some awful movies solely because Lucy Liu is in them. Cypher is one such movie. This 2002 release is director Vincenzo Natali’s transition from the sleek sci-fi horror of 1997’s Cube to the awkward Cronenberg me-too of 2009’s Splice. Jeremy Northam plays the dupe in a mind-bending game of corporate espionage that ends up exactly where you think it’s going to end up. Liu plays Morpheus, but hotter. She even gives Northam red pills. She will arrive dangling from a wire on a helicopter for a hilarious Liu ex machina.

Northam, a capable and British actor, sports an oddly brittle American accent. Liu, a lovely woman, sports a ridiculous unflattering wig. If Cypher is ever rewarding, it’s when these things are shed.