Brainscan is interesting not so much because of the plot, the murders, and the Trickster, as because of its portrait of a teenage boy living at one remove from the world.

More entertaining as an artifact of mid-90s sci-fi than anything more substantial.

Something is missing; perhaps it's the sparseness of edgy scares, or the infrequency of gore, or the conclusion - which just doesn't know what it wants to be.

Brainscan offers a grab bag of intriguing ideas, but the pieces never fit together. Even without the clumsy execution, though, no film could surmount Furlong's complete lack of charisma, energy, talent and screen presence.