The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Dreadfully Boring

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's a bit 'B', a bit dated, but with redeemable characteristics. Some of the writing is pretty good. The direction was hammy, but at least the tone is managed well, over-all. Dr. Angelo's character is given a little berth to pass off as a realistic character; this invites us to identify with him as a "voice of reason" in a cartoonish sci-fi universe.Of course, the whole thing uses the misunderstood tech trope of the year, "virtual reality", boosted by mind-altering drugs, as a hook for yet-another story about man's effort to cosmically transcend. This is a strained notion, as any technically savvy dude or dudette knows. So the whole thing rides on a willing suspension of disbelief. The question remains whether this act of suspension rewards us with a sustainable, ennobling myth.Well, my attempt to give the flick a slight jolt by voting it a '7' is an indicator. The flick is surely dated, but not bad for its time. Where the story fails to fully ennoble, it at least maintains a sense of momentum; I found it quite watchable.At the very least, it worth watching as a heroic effort by the producers to mythically bend new (at the time) tech toward a moral fable about humankind's perennial tech hubris expressed as yet-another effort to bite off more than can reasonably be chewed.I was particularly struck by an interesting form taken by the usual story-management effort to keep Dr. Angelo's karma clean: That the dosing of his human subject with the "next-stage" experimental drugs was effected without his knowledge, via subterfuge by admins; not by the researcher (Angelo) himself. Very clever plot point, that!Anyway. It's not a great flick, but may be worth watching as a kind of worthy period piece. It's a bit of an aesthetic casualty of the 'B'-flick hewings of production folks of the time: If you factor that out, you can see the glimmerings of decent sci-fi.

When I first saw this film, I didn't like it. But then a part of went "Maybe I should watch it again from a different point of view."I enjoyed it a lot more this time, but it still has it's flaws:The opening where the chimp escapes and we just see the top of the back of its helmet. The fella with the dodgy Irish accent. How can you tell he's Irish? Cos he's drinking! You American bastards!Jobe looks like a cartoon character from the beginning. He's looks like Harry from Dumb and Dumber.The beginning where Dr Angelo wakes up from his nightmare, he lights a cigarette and wakes his wife up by blowing smoke in her face. What a prick. Also in that scene, he sees the next door neighbour abuse his wife and son. This is supposed to take place in the middle of the night and yet these people are still up and are not in their pyjamas. Now that I got that out of the way, here's the stuff I do like from this movie:The concept of turning a not very bright man into a very smart man and he gets too addicted to intelligence. The oh-so-90's futuristic sets. The 90's computer graphics.Jeff Fahey was just great as Jobe.The 90's-ness makes this film work for me. There's a lot of great cheesy movies from the 80's and there's certainly a lot from the 90's.If they ever make a special edition Blu-ray, they should interview Jeff Fahey (no need to interview the rest of the cast, there isn't that much to say about their characters), the production designer and the director who was in charge of the computer graphics.As a sci-fi thriller, it is not as intelligent as Twelve Monkeys, but enjoyable if you like cheesy 90's movies.

(34%) Despite the always solid Brosnan at the helm, this still manages to be too weak scripted for its own good as the plot boils down to a simple man gets experimented on, he becomes dangerous and powerful, the end. The secret lab base is one of the most ridiculous examples of set design ever. It looks so dark and depressing, and by the looks of things most of the workers have either killed themselves or simply left as every time it's shown it's almost completely void of people. This very well might be the first movie ever made in which more time and effort was spent on computer effects than the script itself. A true pioneer of CGI driven junk cinema.

Dr Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) is working on using virtual reality in conjunction with 'neutropic drugs' to produce enhancement of intelligence. A chimpanzee on the project manages to use its new intelligence to pick the lock on his cage and kills someone before he is shot. Angelo decides he needs a human test subject. His wife, Caroline (Colleen Coffey) promptly leaves him.Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey) works for Terry McKeen (Geoffrey Lewis) mowing lawns. Jobe isn't that bright - he has been raised and abused by Father Francis McKeen (Jeremy Slate). His best friend is a young boy named Peter (Austin O'Brien) who he reads comics and plays games with. Angelo thinks Jobe would be a perfect test subject. It works and soon Jobe has changed completely. He finds a girlfriend named Marnie Burke (Jenny Wright) and becomes more assertive.However there are unforeseen side-effects as the process starts to unlock hidden psychic powers and Jobe starts to have odd episodes. Angelo's boss Sebastian Timms (Mark Bringleson) finds out what has been going on and has sinister plans for Jobe. Meanwhile Jobe has sinister plans of his own.The script is by Brett Leonard & Gimel Everett and bears little resemblance to Stephen King's novel. It is reasonably paced and well directed by Leonard. The graphics are very 1990s and you accept that. Camera-work and sound are fine if a bit Hammer Horror. Brosnan is great in his role and most other actors give passable performances.The main problem with the film is Fahey. As the lead he needs to be spectacular, as he needs to be convincing as a simpleton, a genius and ultimately a psychopath. He isn't up to it. I don't remember saying this about another film, but this is one occasion where a remake could be better than the original, if you could find the right actor.