SCI FI PI

Available on DVD
Director Brett Leonard
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Jeff Fahey
Released Feb 15
Rated M


Famously said to be based on Stephen King's story, The Lawnmower Man is in actual fact NOT based on Stephen King's story (the only thing vaguely similar is a lawnmower in the plot and the title). King actually sued the film makers, who lost twice to him in court. As a result the trailer no longer has 'from the imagination of Stephen King' in it's voice-over.

The film's story owes more to Daniel Keyes' classic novelette, Flowers for Algernon, (used over and over in film, including Charly and Phenomenon) which is the story of the simple man made genius, and the effects of intelligence upon the emotional side of the human.

What it is also about is the birth of Virtual Reality, and the creation of the internet. Made in 1992, fifteen years before the world of Second Life, Korean teenagers spending weeks on end in cybercafes enmeshed in World of Warcraft and an hysterical US population blaming violence in youth on computer games, it is about a world where the inner realm offers unlimited possibilities, of living as pure energy, of a net that spans the globe.

In the 'films that predict the future category', this does a pretty good job.

The film itself though, has dated, but not to the extent you'd think. It is more in the cinematography, hair and make-up than in the production design and graphics.The computer graphics, of course, were built in a world where the gigabyte was unheard of. That said, they are still striking in their bold design and fluidity; there's a beauty in the often almost abstract and expressionistic use of colour and movement to describe story and emotion that isn't quite captured in more recent films with far superior realism in their computer graphics and special effects.



In terms of graphics and concepts about computers, The Lawnmower Man is the bridge between the films of the 80s like Wargames and Weird Science (and Electric Dreams!), which in turn descend from 2001:A Space Odyssey, where computers are capable of anything, even murder. The amazing thing, when you think about it, is the dearth of computer as character in recent years. We may see them used in techno-thrillers as tools, but the closest thing to a mechanical AI is almost always in physical form, such as in AI: Artificial Intelligence and I, Robot.

But essentially we're talking about the the final third of the film. We're also talking about the difficulties of creating drama with a box that does not move. The Lawnmower Man manages to do this by actually taking us inside cyberspace in a way that we wish someone with the rights to William Gibson's Neuromancer would. The graphics are just as much as an SF milestone as Tron, a decade earlier, and Jurassic Park, a year later.

Whilst there's plenty of late 20th century hair, this is still enjoyable. Even if Pierce Brosnan is a little too sexy to be a scientist. Not quite as sexy, as say, Denise Richards in The World is Not Enough, but close.

It begins with Brosnan, disaffected with his job of programming soldier chimps with virtual reality tools at a time when the first Iraq war combined the concepts of 'computerised technology' and 'war' for a worldwide audience. He goes on 'hiatus' but finds his urge to work overwhelming and decides to experiment on the local not-so-bright Lawnmower Man, Job (Jeff Fahey), who does odd jobs in between being beaten by the local priest. Using injections, electrical stimulation and visual bombardment in a virtual world, our mad scientist increases Job's intelligence exponentially, and then things start getting really interesting. If you've not seen the film before, we'll leave it at that.

The Lawnmower Man is about the seductive power of the infinite capabilities of the internet, but ultimately (just quietly) it's about the corrosive and destructive effect of religion, as it replaces learning and science with 'faith' - belief with no evidence for belief. Amongst the cheesy effects and rather dubious logic at the end, there are some very strong concepts, built up at the beginning of the film with coherent and strong production design, plausible science (up to a point) and a clear set of ideas - absolute power corrupts absolutely, military use of technology is doomed and everyone will have sex, everywhere.

Jeff Fahey's performance from dolt to uber-mensch is one of the great unsung roles of SF cinema.

The only unforgivable snag for the film is the finale, where apart from some still impressive effects, there are some quite rough ideas about mixing SF with silly horror. And the results are, to be mild, laughable.

All in all though, if you're looking for a glimpse at SF history, this is a DVD well worth a squizz.

Extras:

Deleted Scenes that include Robocop Monkey moments which were obviously excised due to silliness. Plenty of extra Job 'development' and 'not being so smart' and 'being much smarter' scenes.

A Behind the Scenes Featurette, with the angle of this newfangled technology called 'Virtual Reality'. Brosnan's hair is amazing.

An Animation montage which is still pretty mind-blowing, no matter how much the graphics have dated, a side-by-side comparison of the storyboards to the finished film (amazing full colour storyboards) and the theatrical trailer, complete with the absence of the name 'Stephen King' in the voice over. "From the imagination..."

No present day updates on the extras.