Subject: REVIEW: JOHNNY MNEMONIC

From: [email-masked] (Allan Toombs)
Date: 12 Feb 1996 20:22:25 GMT

JOHNNY MNEMONIC
                                 [Spoilers]
                       A film review by Allan Toombs
                        Copyright 1996 Allan Toombs

A Real No Brainer
(Some Spoilers)
A Film Review by Allan Toombs
Copyright 1996 Allan Toombs

        The first thing that JOHNNY MNEMONIC did was make me laugh, after
that it was all downhill. The cause of my laughter was a TRON style image of
moving light pathways upon which came the title 'THE INTERNET' and then '-
2021'. This kind of glib acceptance of current gee-whizz predictions for the
future typifies the film's crude approach to the SF genre.
        
        Johnny Mnemonic began in 1981 as a short story in OMNI by William
Gibson. Over the next few years the kind of bleak near-future vision
embodied by the story would gain itself the label 'Cyberpunk' to distance it
the more optimistic mainstream of science fiction. This tag soon grew to
encompass films like BLADERUNNER which seemed to share the same stark
stylism. Today the term has broadened to become a set of alt. newsgroups
with horrific noise to signal problems and an album by Billy Idol, yet the
hyper-realistic vision posited by that original SF clique continues to exert
a powerful influence.

        It must have seemed a natural winner to adapt Gibson's simple tale
of stakeouts into a big budget movie. Bill himself got to do the screenplay
yet somewhere along the way his intensely cerebral brand of SF excitement
got lost in the morass of action/adventure. Attention to detail is a crucial
part of cyberpunk's effect; 'Fragments Of A Hologram Rose' is another Gibson
short with this close-up view at the heart of it's narrative and it's title.
Similarly Ridley Scott's film drew our attention to a single snake scale or
the reflection in a mirror enhanced and amplified. Yet director Robert Longo
fails to bring any style to the cinematography. The direction is neither
poetic and lingering nor ram-raidingly crude like the MAD MAX series; just
bog-standard direction. Even the soundtrack was neither a stirring classical
score nor a moody synthesiser back-drop but somewhere inbetween.

        The Japanese actors in this piece were impeccable, displaying
well-starched malice and the absolute possesion of the Yakuza. Even the much
maligned Ice-T gave one of the best performances in this movie. Whereas
Keanau Reeves was awful, looking far too much like Harrison Ford and
delivering lines like someone doing a bad Scwarzenegger impression. Right
from the opening scene where is sun-bronzed physique was dwelt upon he seems
wrong as the technophile who has a chip in his head. He is meant to be
fragile, head over full with precious data, yet he slugs into every fight
there is. Towards the end he makes a speech straight out of GRAND CANYON and
sounds like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum. Gibson's words (if they are
his work) are memorable "I want starched shirts like they have at the Tokyo
Hilton" but Reeves makes them risable.

        William Gibson's novels always have a strong woman at the heart of
the action. In the original short story we have Molly Millions, ultra-cool
in mirrorshades that are her augmented eyes and razor sharp blades the
retract into her polished nails. Last year's excellent VIRTUAL LIGHT had the
quick-witted cycle courier Chevette Washington. Dina Meyer is woefully
miscast in this role and drifts through the movie like an extra from
Baywatch. It must be hard keeping your hair blow-dried when you live on the
street.

        Dolph Lundgren portrays a psychopath well, but the character was
surplus to requirements. It's as if Fox's bosses felt that there had to be a
white bad guy in case Gibson's deeply multi-ethnic future confused audiences
or over-use of the Yakuza offended Japanese corporate sensibilities. I would
have prefered alot more of Takeshi who was intensely charismatic and
conveyed loss and redemption very convincingly.

        There are some virtuoso computer animated sequences in JOHNNY
MNEMONIC bringing alive Gibson's vivid conception of Cyberspace (hey, the
man coined the term) yet these seem disconnected from the plot. Beautiful
yet pointless. Cyberspace has become nothing more than a fly-through MTV
video. What we do see of the net's future is couched in lazy gee-whizzery.
Our hero opens a world map, points to Beijing and then goes straight to the
Hotel he wants. Where's the vaunted information overload?

        Some moronic use was made of stock footage including a clip of an
aircraft landing - it's a Concorde. Now where's the attention to detail? I
thought everyone knew the Concorde fleet only has 20 years more life left in
it (many of them are cannibalised already!) and that the successor project
won't have a replacement for alot longer than that. By pitching JOHNNY
MNEMONIC in 2021 it's ensured that the Concorde is out of place. Similarly
there's a pitiful model shot of a communications satellite that is gratingly
cheap  sat next to the computer generated sequences.

        Overall JOHNNY MNEMONIC shows how Hollywood can take a promisingly
cinematic story, chew it up and spit it out without any soul. Evertything
has to be literal and visual. At the end of the movie with the contraband
data safely broadcast Reeves and Meyer kiss (happy ending ahoy!) and the
wicked corporate building bursts into flames, "Somebody getting some early
revenge" he explains. As if anyone can bomb a tower-block on a whim just to
give us a James Bond style ending. This is a tragicly wasted opportunity to
bring a unique science-fiction vision to the big screen and a reminder of
what a mess Hollywood creates when it thinks it knows what the kids want. 

        Everyone want's to cut off Johnny's head but in the end it's the
movie itself that runs around like a headless chicken.

 Allan Toombs
 http://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/bt18/atoombs.html
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