cyguration

My sister used to love this film, but I never understood why. We would typically watch anything with Linda Hamilton in it, but I never could get into this movie.

I remember the reviews all panned it; and now, nearly 40 years later, I can see why.

This had everything to be a cult classic: great cast, awesome premise, cool sci-fi themes.

So what went wrong? Well, this -- like many movies from the 80s and early 90s -- felt like the concoction of some Hollywood executive's fever dream after going on a coke binge.

There are like four different movies rolled into one here, and yet none of them seem to be cohesively fleshed out.

This is really what hurts this film more than anything: tons of half-baked ideas tucked into a movie that has a quick runtime that somehow manages to be boring due to poor pacing.

There are only two noteworthy action sequences involving the eponymous Black Moon. And despite it being the namesake of the film, this cool looking, retro-futuristic, hydrogen powered hyper-car is rarely featured in the film.

Tommy Lee Jones is interesting to watch as a stoic thief, and Linda Hamilton attempts to smoulder as a devious thief, and despite both being thieves neither have much chemistry together. It's part of the whole concept of this film smashing multiple concepts together without actually doing much with them.

Worst yet, I think Tommy Lee Jones and Linda Hamilton were both miscast in this.

I think Dirk Benedict may have been a better pick as a Han Solo-esque thief, down on his luck but quick with his wits. But then again, Tommy Lee Jones and the Black Moon were the only two things that kept this film remotely interesting, so replacing him with anyone else might have had the opposite effect.

And Rebecca De Mornay, Sally Field or Ellen Barkin might have done a better job as a carjacking femme fatale. While I usually like Hamilton, here she just didn't seem to have much to work with and didn't seem terribly interested in the uninspired character she was playing.

This also isn't to say that mish-mashing different genres together can't work -- they absolutely can. Real Steel as a sci-fi boxing family drama works well, and Big Trouble In Little China worked excellent as a comedic sci-fi B-movie action-horror martial arts film.

The thing is, you have to pace your movie correctly and make sure the threads keep the audience interested. Here, too much of the film meandered around and there were too many scenes that just didn't have to be or didn't move the plot along in any interesting ways.

They should have focused more on outlining the heist and the complexity of getting past the security systems in the tower(s); or focusing more on the importance of the Black Moon and why people wanted it; or why the accountant tapes were so vital.

These subplot threads were all there but never fully explored. They all kind of come to an abrupt end at the ending.

It's more disappointing than anything, because this film had so much potential, but just kind of goes nowhere. One thing that really stood out was the poor editing -- there's a chase scene that ensues in the desert near the beginning of the film that just cuts off and switches to a random scene in a bar. It's like... what?!?!

They either should have focused more on the action or more on developing the plot. But they kind of half-heartedly approached every plot point, leaving the film feeling unsatisfying as a sci-fi thriller, unsatisfying as an action film, and unsatisfying as a romance movie (the romance was especially bad and made no sense whatsoever).

I feel like maybe there's a director's cut somewhere that is re-edited to make the film make more sense or at least feel more cohesive, but is such a film really worth it? I can't really vouch for such a thing.

You really don't realize just how good an actor Andy Lau is until you see the other Detective Dee sequels starring Mark Chao and the seemingly made-for-TV spin-off starring Narisu Bai.

This is technically the last story of Detective Dee, but it's the first film in the movie franchise, so there is definitely a measure of dissonance when it comes to audience expectations and character development, because almost all of it happens in the sequels, which are actually preqeuls.

However, while the other films flesh out Dee's background, cohorts, and friends, this is the only film that really gives him a platform upon which to stand as a truly heroic figure, and this is in no small part due to Andy Lau's unmatched performance as the legendary sleuth.

While other portrayals has Detective Dee more as a thoughtful yet somewhat passive detective, Lau's portrayal is closer to a mix of Sherlock Holmes and Wong Fei Hong. He's an absolute unstoppable force and raises the bar to heights that sadly Mark Chao and Narusi Bai have an almost impossible job of matching.

When Chao mentioned in an interview he wasn't a martial artist, it really showed in his performance, as most of the action-heavy sequences had to be deferred to Shaofeng Feng. Whereas here, Lau does almost all of the heavy-lifting for the action beats. It completely changes the tone of how the character is portrayed and what you expect of him.

All that being said, even Lau's superb acting -- buffered by the very gorgeous Li Bingbing -- still can't fix some of the story inconsistencies and pacing issues. The film is much longer than it has any right to be, and some of the action set pieces go on too long and are a bit too ridiculous even for a fantasy film like this.

Still, it has an interesting premise and keeps in line with the sequel-prequels when it comes to the tension between Detective Dee and the Empress, who is played to meticulous perfection by Carina Lau.

I will say that one thing the sequels do better than this film is that the character Shatuo Zhong is played up with much more enthusiasm and believability by the charming Kenny Lin. He brings a softness to the character that Tony Leung Ka-fai lacks in his portrayal. Although, given the circumstances of where the plot picks up, it sort of makes sense -- but if the things that happened to Tony Leung's version of the character happened to Kenny Lin, I feel Lin's portrayal would be very different.

Nevertheless, if you're in the mood for an over-the-top, historical fantasy adventure mystery film, this is a good way to go for an evening if you have two and a half hours to spare -- despite its inconsistencies and plot holes.

I would say definitely watch it for Andy Lau, though. He elevates the film to levels that make it more compelling than what the original material might have offered without him.

I've been suffering from the Mandela Effect lately when it comes to reminiscing about older films. Nostalgia has played a vicious game of altered reality when it comes to fond memories of older films versus the reality of what they were actually like.

The thing is, these films actually DO live up to the nostalgia, just not the theatrical cuts. It's a bit bizarre because some of the films I've been rewatching as director's cut and enjoying them immensely, were not the versions of the films I originally saw when they first came out. It's a little like the brain is playing tricks, thinking fondly about a version of the film that didn't initially exist at the time. Weird.

In any case, that's exactly how it is with The Lawnmower Man. This film's theatrical cut was kind of a goofy cult-classic. I think at the time I of release I loved the concept more than I loved the movie, but there were still some awesome sequences that still stand out to this day, one of the scenes I always liked most was Job standing on the balcony, perplexed and anxious, ruminating while telepathically cutting the lawn, all while his girlfriend is in the background, losing her mind. It's a strangely captivating scene.

Scenes like that are still in the director's cut, but even more-so, we get a lot more exposition, explanation, and character development that better outlines the film's lofty exploration of mind and machine.

In many ways, The Lawnmower Man is way ahead of its time in terms of connecting and controlling people via computers. Back then they had (wrongly) estimated virtual reality would have been a big thing back in 2001, but the internet was still mostly dial-up back then, as DSL and T1 connections were limited mostly to enterprise businesses. It would take another ten years before social media and more widespread accessibility would enable large parts of the world to seamlessly connect to the net. It would take yet another ten years before VR would become more widesperad slightly more commonplace.

Even still, the movie had lofty goals about the dangers of VR, population control through simulated systems, and altered states of mind through digital access. While a bit hokey in the way it's presented in the film, it does have some bearing in real life with things like VR Chat and Discord being used as ways to weaponize impressionable minds.

But beyond the fear-mongering about the dangers of unfettered technological access, the movie itself works much better in the director's cut. More than half an hour's worth of footage delves deeper into Angelo's research, more of Job's descent into madness, as well as VSI's ties to the military industrial complex and its influence on Angelo's work.

Pierce Brosnan also does a fantastic job as Dr. Angelo, with the director's cut definitely painting him more as the villain for two-thirds of the film. While the theatrical cut sort of painted him as heartless and driven to curiosity beyond the limits of morality, the director's cut really hammers home how obsessed he had become with the work and putting boundaries aside to make breakthroughs.

I think in as much as Job is painted as an antagonist, he definitely comes across as much more of a victim here and a bit of an anti-villain. Suffice to say, there are layers and complexity here that makes the film feel more expansive than what ended up in theaters.

Now is this a fantastic film? Not by a long shot. Even the director's cut still suffers from editing and pacing issues, and the musical score really felt like some made-for-TV schlock, which definitely undercut the quality of the film. The set designs for VSI were pretty cool and still hold up, though; there's definitely some bones there that give it a strong sci-fi horror vibe structure, not unlike the gravity generator room in Event Horizon.

The dated CGI also brings down the film a bit, but some of the ways in which the deaths occur via CGI were at least inventive for the time. Also, they were pretty spot-on with how future VR headsets would look, along with the haptic gloves. So as far as the hardware is concerned, they were pretty spot on.

Plot wise, the movie moves along, and it's definitely carried A LOT by Jeff Fahey, who has to turn in one of the more complex roles in movie history. He's playing the same guy but in three vastly different phases of mental capacity. He really nails it, though, and manages to convey a lot of the depth called for with the role. This could have easily gone into more B-movie camp territory in the wrong hands, but Fahey elevates the movie greatly, alongside Pierce Brosnan, who -- despite his villainous tendencies -- manages to still bring an air of humanity to the role and a charismatic drive that keeps the tension rather between his Dr. Angelo and Job.

I also forgot just how homoerotic a lot of 80s and 90s movies were. Seemed like every other scene in the director's cut saw Fahey or Brosnan shirtless. It's funny because if a mainstream sci-fi flick had two female co-leads undressed as often as Fahey and Brosnan, the critics would have balked to no end. But I digress.

Anyway, if you've enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) the original Lawnmower Man, the director's cut is worth a watch if you have the time. It kind of feels like an American version of Akira in some ways.

If you haven't seen Lawnmower Man, it's a cult-classic for a reason. The director's cut is more slow-paced but definitely feels out the story a lot more and makes the weight of events toward the back-half feel far more significant. It also does a better job of juggling the morally gray line between the characters, which I think adds some depth to the film.

Definitely worth a watch.