The Lawnmower Man

Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) at Virtual Space Industries is experimenting on chimps with drug-assisted virtual reality to raise intelligence. The company is looking for military uses but Angelo wants other uses. Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey) is a mentally-slow gardener. Dr. Angelo sees Jobe as an opportunity to test his work on a human specimen. Soon, Jobe gains brain power which leads to conflicts.

Jeff Fahey's slow look is probably the most memorable thing about this movie. The need to show cinematically his slow mental state leaving him looking silly. It's a bit of cheese which keeps one from taking this movie seriously. His normal look isn't much better and is kind of creepy. The primitive CGI keeps the movie looking dated. It's also notable for a lawsuit by Stephen King to take his name out. The movie is relatively flat without much tension. It's very static and the virtual reality isn't exciting. The movie has no tension for a long time. It's very broad and only for cult film lovers.

I went to see this movie in the theater when it was released. At the time the graphics were not dated in any way shape or form. Where is VR today? I recently bought the DVD and after watching it and remembering that it was an eight (8) year old movie, I still enjoyed it. I have seen a few VR games in arcades and to be honest the graphics today aren't much better than they were in this movie. I have seen a lot of comments about the effects being dated and I think that should be common sense when watching an older movie. When I watch Tron I don't think that the graphics are dated, I just remember that the movie was made in 1982 and effects and computer animation weren't the same back then as they are today. Most older movies have that look when compared to today's special effects. I always take that into account when watching older movies. I enjoyed Lawnmower Man then, now and I will the next time I watch it. I will keep it in my DVD collection.

I got 'The Lawnmower Man' as part of one of those 'Buy a pizza and get a free movie' deals, and I put off watching it. And put it off more. And more, until finally I had nothing else to do, so I popped it in the VCR and sat back. Two and half hours later (It was the director's cut- don't see the normal version as it is not nearly as good) it instantly became one of my favorite movies, so I rewound it and watched it again.

To date I have seen it four of five times, as it has problems, it's not very fast paced, but is terribly engaging and Fahey is superb in the lead. The writing isn't great, but is passable, and the computer effects, though far from the center of the story, are excellent.

If you haven't seen it yet, or have only seen the normal version, it is well worth the rental, or even purchase.

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.

I found the director's cut better than the theatrical version. The story is interesting with a scientist who experiments on a disabled gardener who transforms into something else. I think it's interesting on the Virtual Space Industries and what goals are they trying to do. The director's cut have more build-up towards the characters and their problems throughout. It's also builds the character Jobe on how he's a simple guy but becomes smarter and more dangerous later in the movie. We also see the new abilities he gains when he is doing the experiments and uses that for his advantage. In the director's cut, we see how the industry isn't a good company and shows how their work can cause something to go very wrong. Also, later in the movie, the climax gets pretty crazy with Jobe using his new abilities to attack either his enemies or people get in his way. That part is pretty fun to see how bizarre this movie gets.

The theatrical version lacks any build-up towards the characters, and it feels like it happened pretty quickly.