Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

the audience applauded

Admirable film.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

When I first heard of this film, I thought, "Oh, yeah. That'll tank." Just based on its title, people won't know whether it's a misprint or not. And, if they know that it's correct, then they probably won't be able to pronounce it in order to buy a ticket for it. Me? I just thought it was a bad choice for a title. Fastforward twenty years and I have finally gotten around to watching this film and . . . actually . . . it's NOT that bad. Of course, it's completely wrong about what the future world will look like. (It's set in 2021.) Yet, its view of the future is lushly told. Someone clearly went to a lot of trouble to make this dystopic world look real. Unfortunately, the storytelling is the problem. There's clearly so much more that could have been told in addition to the requisite running around, fighting, and shooting at people. While you can tell there's a "story" here, Robert Longo, the director, just doesn't tell it. This is too bad, because this movie actually tantalizes with details of relationships and other encounters that could have made it a classic sci-fi film in the vein of "Blade Runner." Oh, well. Possibilities. Would I watch it again? Probably not. Still, it wasn't a waste of time.

A data courier, literally carrying a data package inside his head, must deliver it before he dies from the burden or is killed by the Yakuza. Once i heard about this movie i couldn't wait to watch it i mean Keanu Reeves (The Matrix) and Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV) in the same movie? this should be amazing right? this should be great right? Not really because the film was boring and so dumb that i couldn't even finish the whole damn thing and once Lundgren showed up i was so devastated that i just skipped the whole thing i tried so hard to finish it but i couldn't it was really terrible probably one of the worst from the 90's to be honest.

AKA the film that nearly killed Keanu's career....The year is 2021, and half of the Earth's population is suffering from the disease known as Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS). Johnny, a mnemonic data courier, is hired to carry 320 gigabytes of crucial information to safety from the Pharmacom corporation. Pursued by Yakuza agents and a crazed cyborg, Johnny must deliver the data or die in twenty-four hours......Everyone in the world knows that Reeves isn't the best actor in the world, but the man has more screen presence than half of Hollywood. He's a bonafide movie star, and although there are times when you cannot help but laugh at his delivery of lines, you couldn't imagine anyone else as Neo, John Wick, and we all secretly know Speed 2 would have been a huge hit if he was in it.This though, isn't terrible because of Reeves, it's terrible because despite co I g from a decent source, it's narrative is clunky, there are far too many characters giving Basil Exposition, and in the end, it becomes very incoherent.But Reeves, he is really bad in this, and considering this isn't long after Speed, it's surmising he didn't go for something more mainstream.Seriously, the best thing about this film is Dolph Lundgren, and he's barely in it, as this really bizarre Jesus loving, robotic assassin.So we spend the entirety of the film with Johnny being told the plot,of the film by Udo Kier, Dina Meyer, Ice T, and Henry Rollins.Every now and again we get a VR sequence where Johnny turns into the slender man, and it all leads up to a dramatic showdown with Takeshi Kitano, a man with an electric whip, and a cyber-dolphin.But the film has to be seen for Reeves alone. His one liners fall flat, and as much as I like his films, this falls flat whenever he opens his mouth.

"Johnny Mnemonic," released in 1995, had a lot of things going for it, with just as many things working against it. "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991) had made a critical and commercial breakthrough in CGI special effects, and the visually dazzling "The Lawnmower Man" in 1992 helped to continue the trend. "The Lawnmower Man" was one of the earliest cyber-thrillers of the 1990s, picking up on the increasing relevance of computer technology and the nascent Internet craze (as well as the rising popularity of Japanese Anime'), thus paving the way for CGI special effects-laden cyber-thrillers like "Johnny Mnemonic" to make another breakthrough."Johnny Mnemonic" was a critical and commercial disappointment, but the film has nonetheless gained something of a cult status - again due largely to the underground cyberpunk sub-genre of science fiction, and, of course, the landmark breakthrough success of "The Matrix" (1999), which brought all this stuff together (amongst other influences from disparate genres) in one epic 136-minute feature and effectively legitimized cyberpunk and science fiction for the new millennium.In that regard, "Johnny Mnemonic" wasn't so much a failed effort as it was a premature one. Put simply, despite the underground popularity of cyberpunk and the increasing visibility of the computer hacker subculture, critics and audiences simply may not have been ready for this film - and aside from the usual quibbles with hammy dialogue and spotty direction. I was 10 in 1995, and vaguely recall the previews for this movie, and not paying any attention to it - because my mind was focused elsewhere. But I've seen the film off and on over the years, and after seeing "The Matrix" and reading up a little bit on cyberpunk, it becomes much easier to make the connection to "Johnny Mnemonic" (as well as the Anime' classic "Ghost in the Shell," which came out the same year as this film, and 1982's "Blade Runner").Science fiction author William Gibson - who wrote the seminal cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer" in 1984 - wrote the screenplay for "Johnny Mnemonic," which is adapted from one of his short stories. Robert Longo directed the film, and it stars Keanu Reeves, who at that time was hot off the success of "Speed" from one year before in 1994. Reeves may have been this film's other hindrance, which critics most likely picked up on, too.I've been saying for years that Reeves is an actor who knows his strengths and his weaknesses, and knows what he can and can't do as a performer - yet not everybody, critics and directors alike, seem aware of that. That doesn't necessarily make him a bad actor, but it shows that he's honest, and that he's more aware of his abilities than most people are willing to admit. But that's just my opinion; I'm sure others feel completely different about it.The film is set in January of 2021 - just five years from now - and is set at first in Beijing and later Newark, New Jersey. Reeves plays the title character, a "wet-wired" data courier (basically, a human hard drive) who is able to carry digitized data via a computer chip implant in his brain. At the beginning of the film, Japanese businessmen hire him to carry a large, classified data package to New Jersey, but just as the process is completed, assassins working for the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) come in and kill the executives. Johnny manages to barely escape with his life.Johnny then learns that the classified data that was downloaded into his head is too much for his brain to carry (320 gigabytes, which is apparently double the amount he can safely handle), and will kill him in two or three days time if it's not removed in time. Hounded by the Yakuza, who are led by a ruthless assassin named Shinji (Denis Akiyama, who carries a very lethal weapon to do his kills), as well as a crazed Street Preacher (Dolph Lundgren), Johnny has nowhere to turn to - with everyone, wanting his head served on a silver platter, literally, to Japanese pharmaceutical executive Takahashi (Takeshi) - except for a wannabe-bodyguard named Jane (Dina Meyer), an ex-doctor named Spider (Henry Rollins), and rebel leader J-Bone (Ice-T).There are action sequences and there are special effects - most of which would be considered laughable with today's advances in CGI technology, but were pretty state-of-the-art at the time of this film's release just 21 years ago. The film is by no means perfect, but it's really impressive to see Keanu Reeves in a cyber-thriller made just four years before he took the Red Pill in "The Matrix" and would change everything as we know it. But he's not Neo yet, and he can't defy gravity in "bullet time" - yet."Johnny Mnemonic" works best as a time capsule, and as perhaps a launching pad for future ideas, the same ideas that had been popular in cyberpunk science fiction for years by that point, but would not reach popular, mainstream acceptance for another four years.^ Whoa, at that last statement.P.S.: That Anime' film that the Japanese businessmen are watching at the beginning of the movie is "Demon City Shinjuku" (1988). LOL!7/10