THE LAWNMOWER MAN
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(sbb@panix.com)
The Phantom should know by now what to expect when Stephen King's name is on the marquee: perhaps the worst theatrically-released horror or science fiction of the year. Although occasionally a talented filmmaker will successfully adapt a Stephen King short story or novel -- Rob Reiner has done wonders with two of King's stories so far, and Brian DePalma made a name both for himself and for King with his adaptation of CARRIE -- we will more often get anything from the forgettable RUNNING MAN to the terrible GRAVEYARD SHIFT to the absolute nadir of King adaptations, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, directed by the master of horror himself who apparently spared no effort in proving that a good writer does not a talented filmmaker make.
With THE LAWNMOWER MAN, King's name returns once again to the top of the marquee, and it was with some trepidation that the Phantom ventured into the Ziegfeld theater in New York (perhaps the largest and most lavish movie theater on the East Coast) to see what looked as if it might be a cross between a very vague memory of an old Stephen King short story and the result of an Amiga run amok. At the very least, the Phantom reasoned, the film's extensive computer graphics would be shown to best advantage on a screen big enough that it should have its own zip code; the unavoidable downside of having Pierce Brosnan's unshaven face looming fifty feet high above the Phantom for the bulk of the film's 100 minutes didn't occur to him until it was too late to sneak out and still get a refund.
But that unshaven face should have given the Phantom pause, for although computer graphics are sprinkled liberally throughout the film, the majority of screen time is occupied by Mr. Brosnan and his inability to act. He and his thespian disability share the screen every so often with his incredibly cheesy-looking laboratory, which appears for all the world to be nothing more than a parking garage with some neon lights and two of those gizmos that David Letterman had on his show some time back -- the ones that let you rotate yourself through 360 degrees in 3 dimensions. The Phantom kept eager eyes peeled for the Velcro wall or perhaps a large vat filled with shaving cream; after all, although the Phantom has made the acquaintance of a computer or two in his time, he's a novice when it comes to the exciting and ever-so-interesting world of virtual reality and all the props that world apparently requires.
Mr. Brosnan and his stubble, you see, have invented a way to use virtual reality to make people smarter. At least the Phantom believes that was his intention, as no one in the film behaves very intelligently either in or out of virtual reality. There is a fairly bright-looking chimpanzee at the beginning of the film, but he's quickly dispatched, most likely due to the "Don Johnson-look" clause in Mr. Brosnan's contract: no one in THE LAWNMOWER MAN is allowed to have more facial hair than the star of the film. Later, and for a very brief time, a complete idiot -- the "lawnmower man" of the title -- does seem to dress somewhat better than he used to, and he does get to make love to an incredibly bad actress, but he never seems very much brighter than he did at the beginning of the film. In fact, after that chimpanzee, it's pretty much all down hill in the intelligence department.
As it happens, THE LAWNMOWER MAN isn't really about virtual reality or the possibility of using computer technology to help people understand better the world around them; instead, it's just another "scientist's good intentions cause catastrophic results when his little refrigerated bottles of colored liquid fall into the wrong hands" flick, with some 3-D video games, evil government agents, and megalomania thrown in both indiscriminately and ineffectively.
And yet THE LAWNMOWER MAN has done fairly well at the box office, which can only mean that not everyone shares the Phantom's belief that it is a fundamentally dishonest and mean-spirited film. In the Phantom's mind, this can only be attributed to the "My Little Pony" effect, except here with computer graphics for the techno-geeks instead of cloyingly cute pink ponies for 8-year-old girls. There is a sizable audience who will see -- and, apparently, enjoy -- anything at all with computer graphics in it, just as there is a sizable number of undiscriminating 8-year-old girls who will gladly coerce their parents into attending MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOTION PICTURE. Of course, the salient difference is that those in the audience for the plastic figurine's adventures are children, whereas those in the audience for the R-rated LAWNMOWER MAN are supposed to be adults, and so should know better by now.
Films produced around computer graphics have had exceedingly poor track records: of TRON, THE LAST STARFIGHTER, and THE LAWNMOWER MAN, one would be hard-pressed to pick the one that's well off the "stupid" scale that we reviewers always keep in mind once the auditorium lights dim. (Just for reference: CITIZEN KANE is a 0 and HUDSON HAWK rings the bell.) In each case, the filmmakers apparently labored under the mistaken belief that computer graphics would keep us mesmerized long enough that we wouldn't notice how very silly or unoriginal the rest of film was. Yet when used sparingly, or with the grace and wit of the artists at Pixar, computer graphics can provide a film with truly breathtaking moments. If asked what they think is the most memorable scene in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, many people mention the show-stopping ballroom scene -- a scene that could have been animated only through the use of carefully designed computer graphics. Likewise, it's neither Schwarzenegger nor the near-ceaseless violence that captured people's imagination and caused audible gasps in the audience for TERMINATOR 2; instead, it was the liquid-metal and optical effects provided courtesy of extensive and ground-breaking computer graphics.
But stripped of grace, wit and restraint, films that feature computer graphics for their own sake are anything from trite, to dull, to ridiculous. It is in just this way that THE LAWNMOWER MAN seemed to the Phantom to have quite a bit in common with "My Little Pony" -- in both cases, a cynical attempt was made to capture audience dollars by using poorly and unimaginatively a technique that could be used well and with care. And, alas, in both cases that attempt appears to have paid off handsomely -- something that can do nothing but encourage future attempts to cash in on some people's undiscriminating need to see extended toy commercials or numbingly uninspired computer graphics in the service of an even less inspired film.
The possibilities of virtual reality have best been covered by William Gibson's "cyber-punk" novels; perhaps someday someone will turn his excellent NEUROMANCER or COUNT ZERO into a feature film. In the meantime, we have only the efforts of Brett Leonard and Gimel Everett, who wrote and directed THE LAWNMOWER MAN as if they never had even the slightest intention of exploring the concept of virtual reality. Instead, every time the plot takes us inside the artificial world in which Brosnan and his subject frequently lose themselves, all we get are 3-D video games, a strange and unlikely combination of TRON and FROM BEYOND, and of course some obligatory cybersex, just to earn that R-rating. (FRITZ THE CAT this is not; FELIX THE CAT more closely approximates the level of this film.) And as anyone familiar with the prop-laden world of virtual reality knows, one can only enter said world if one is whirling about like a human gyroscope and covered from head to toe in a rubber suit. The actors do this quite a lot in the film, so phans may wish to arm themselves with Dramamine beforehand.
When not spinning about in Mr. Brosnan's contraptions, the characters become involved in unlikely plot developments concerning "The Shop" -- the only element of the film that is recognizably "from the mind of Stephen King" -- and Brosnan's personal life (his wife walks out of the film early on, and phans would be wise to note her behavior in case they find themselves at a showing of THE LAWNMOWER MAN against the Phantom's best recommendations). We also witness the evolution of the "lawnmower man" from slow-witted gardener to Megalomaniacal genius (at one point Brosnan notes that he'd become smarter than Brosnan himself -- something that perhaps seemed more shocking in the script than it did on the screen, given Brosnan's performance). Along the way he dispatches several people, each of whom dies an updated version of an 80s-style Jasonized death. Some die in computationally expensive ways, which surely pleased the techno-geeks in the audience. One dies after he is chased out of his house by a lawnmower in a scene which perfectly captures the film's level of plausibility. Another staggers around in a daze after hearing "Now The Lawnmower Man is inside your head -- forever!"; after the end titles rolled, the Phantom knew just how he must have felt.
So as not to make this a completely negative review, and to redeem himself for the review's extreme tardiness, the Phantom will note that all of this was done long ago -- and done much better -- by Ken Russell in his extraordinarily loopy (but very enjoyable) 1980 film ALTERED STATES. Russell used a sensory deprivation tank and magic mushrooms instead of rubber suits and gyroscopes, but the idea was the same, and the film -- while not precisely a paragon of logic -- was at least entertaining. (There's also something to be said for watching William Hurt -- in his screen debut -- wake up naked surrounded by baboons in a zoo. Now no matter how pretentious he becomes, we can always remind him of his rather less-than-Shakespearean beginnings. Only Jane Fonda has more to live down....)
Of course, much of the sensory-assaulting special effects will be lost on the small screen, but phans will still be much happier watching this typically over-the-top Russell exercise in alternate realities than they will watching yet another in a depressingly long list of failed films about computers. HAL, where are you now that we really need you?
: The Phantom : sbb@panix.com : cmcl2!panix!sbb
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