Rookie cop Sam Staziak has a unique gift: he is a Scanner, which gives him the power to read the thoughts of others, and also to inflict great bodily harm. When a mad scientist begins using mind control to murder police officers, Sam realizes that only he and his unique gift can put an end to the mayhem.
The producers of the "Scanners" series decided to take this in a whole new direction. This time out, we meet young scanner Samuel whose birth father goes insane. He is adopted by an understanding cop. Years later, his adopted dad is police commander and Samuel Staziak (Daniel Quinn) is a rookie cop. He is on drugs to keep his scanning under control, but helps out his dad after a bunch of cops are shot by usually normal people. It seems Karl Glock (perennial villain Richard Lynch) is programming people to kill cops as revenge for his being shot by the commander.
The whole plot is just fine and dandy, but this film feels like one of those old syndicated TV action shows like "VIP" or "Silk Stalkings." Better action has been witnessed on "T.J. Hooker." It seems all the budget was spent on the special effects by John Carl Buechler, which are fine except for a hilarious finale involving a defibrillator. The film makers also do not remember their own mythology, as we see the scanner cop chase someone in an elevator by taking the next elevator that comes along. As we know, and the film shows us, scanners can "control" machines, so why doesn't he just scan and tell the elevator with the criminal in it to stop? In the finale, as the scanner cop is running all over a hospital looking for his injured dad, he scans everyone he comes in contact with. The facial contortions and scanning take longer than just using his mouth and asking where his father is. I had the same reaction to this that I did with "Scanners" I and II. Fine, I have now seen them, time to go outside. This is average in the purest sense of the word, and I wish the film makers had taken more chances with this by-the-numbers production.