Johnny Mnemonic

I saw half of this movie on television once, and since I am a avid sci-fi fan, the story intrigued me. A couple of weeks later I went out to pick up a copy of this movie for myself, and ever since I've been watching it every now and then. Not every month, but at least once every 4 or 5 months. Sometimes more. There's just something about it that I like. Well, lets start from the beginning:

It is the year 2021 and the world has been taken over by large coorporations that do pretty much what they want to. Most of them are out to make money, however, and will do anything to achieve that goal. One of these coorporations is PharmaCom, a coorporation that deals in medicine and exists pretty much all over the world. From Beijing to Newark. 'Johnny' is a Mnemonic courier who carries an implant in his brain which allows him to carry a large amount of data there. But when he accepts a job where he is overloaded with data, he is not only experiencing trouble with getting rid of the data, but also finds that several bounty hunters and crime organizations are after his head and the information stored within. Over 24 hours he jumps around in the city of Newark, trying to find a way to get rid of the data and the bounty hunters.

A touch in this movie that many might recognize from the film 'The Matrix' is that in this movie they tend to hook themselves up to the internet, which has become a virtual reality like, àlà The Lawnmower man. But in the end of the film, Keanu's character completly hooks himself up to the internet for a short amount of time, walking around in it and controlling his actions as if he was in another world. Pretty much like he did in the Matrix. Wierd, huh?

The film presents a very interesting vision of the future. Coorporations, crime syndicates, virtual-reality, futuristic weapons and the like. The sets look authentic and the look and feel of the film is top-notch. The music seems to fit the mood at all times, too, which is a big plus. The characters are likeable and unique in their own way, but with one exception. Keanu Reeves plays 'Johnny' without any life or energy put into it and delivers his lines flat and in the most boring way. His worst acting job ever? Perhaps. You could tell he didn't like this movie very much.

Overall, its a very interesting sci-fi flick which has its ups and downs. The upsides is the setting, the music, the vision of the future etc. etc. while the downsides are Keanu Reeve's acting and sometimes lack of interest in what happens next in the movie. I give it a 7/10.

Heavens, why is everybody bragging about this movie? Maybe because they compare it to "Matrix? Probably, I wouldn't know another reason.

Nobody says that this is a real block-buster, but it is definetely not as bad as everyone here wants to make it.

It's a nice movie to enjoy (especially on DVD) and forget afterwards. Not because it was bad but just because it was good and entertaining for a short while. Nothing more, nothing less.

And it DID have its benefits: that crazy preacher was so hilarious to behold. A nice and funny mirror to the numerous fundamentalistic Christians in the American society. And, of course, some nice fighting scenes, cool hi-tech equipment, and a gorgeous Dina Meyer, all packed in a futuristic ambience. What else could I ask for for an action movie that you can enjoy and forget about afterwards?

This is not a terrible film as claimed, but it had faults: poor pacing; weak atmosphere (visuals were there, but insufficient music track to back them up); and its largely unexplained universe.

Ideally, you need to have read Gibson's short stories and "Neuromancer" first, and then all the props - cyberspace, 'black ice', grubby streets, brand-name hardware, Yakuza assassins, muscle grafts, etc - make sense. The "Blade Runner" style information dump was no substitute. Incidentally, many of these props appear cliched, but remember that Gibson more or less invented them; it's merely that this film appeared long after they had become standard movie fixtures.

Gibson's written work has fairly sparse dialogue, and makes heavy use of precise and rather introspective visual description to convey character. Perhaps this just doesn't translate well to film.

What is it with Keanu Reeves and big budget cyberpunk science fiction movies? Oh well.

Considering it was based on the short story of the same name by cyberpunk godfather William Gibson, the movie is a minor disappointment. It's not that bad, but it could have been so much better.

However, a lot of Gibson's ideas are still there, making it a solid cyberpunk movie. There aren't too many of those around.

Johnny Mnemonic could have been a wonderful movie, had William Gibson not strayed so far from his original story when writing the screenplay. Having painter Robert Longo direct the movie, the first and to this date only full length feature he has directed, was probably not the best idea either. While Longo may present the occasional intriguing image, his inexperience shows in other areas. The acting is terrible for the most part, with Henry Rollins taking the cake for worst performance. Reeves, contrary to popular opinion, is alright and has a few great scenes, most notably his angry breakdown on the pile of garbage under the bridge.

Having read Johnny Mnemonic several times the character of Jane is one of the most annoying factors of the movie. In the story the character is Molly Millions, a confident, tough as nails mercenary who sports several augmentations, most important being retractable blades under her fingernails. However, they had to change the character since Molly Millions is also a main character in Gibson's book Neuromancer, and another company owed the film production rights for that book, including the character of Molly. But they could have made Jane more like Molly. Instead, she's as insecure as Johnny, and he spends more time protecting her than she does him, which is supposed to be her job.

There are other little inaccuracies in the movie, such as the Magnetic Dog Sisters. In the story they are the door guards at the club and Johnny claims that they are "bad news in a tussle." In the movie they are Ralfi's bodyguards and portrayed as pathetic and outdated rather than dangerous. The story doesn't have anything about NAS, that's all a fabrication to fill space for the movie.

Gibson seems to try to shoehorn several of his concepts into the Johnny Mnemonic movie. Instead of living in the rafters high above the streets, as they do in the story, the Lo Teks live on an old bridge. Gibson has people living on the Golden Gate Bridge in his books Virtual Light and All Tomorrow's Parties. The bartender Hooky, at the club where Johnny meets Ralfi, is an approximation of Ratz, a bartender from the book Neuromancer. Johnny never accesses the matrix (the internet) in the story, but he does in the movie, for no apparent reason other than allowing director Longo to show off some CGI special effects.

Longo also chooses to mimic Blade Runner in the opening scenes, and later on one character tells another that it's "time to die", a famous line from BR. I thought this was unnecessary, and cheapens the movie, as blatantly ripping of Blade Runner, whether it's for the purpose of homage or not, is the signature of several B-Movies, which is sadly what Johnny Mnemonic ends up being anyway.

I still like the movie. It does have some good elements to it, and if you're a fan of Gibson, you should see it. It's better than Abel Ferrera's terrible adaptation of New Rose Hotel, because it at least portrays Gibsons technological world. I hope that Johnny Mnemonic is remade one day because it is a great story. I'd ask Reeves to play Johnny again, because I like him in the role. Gibson's writing is so descriptive, that a screenplay should follow the story as literally as possible. Ideally, I think that Johnny Mnemonic would work out as a short film, something no longer than an hour. It is a short story after all, and adding filler to extend the time certainly didn't work the first time.