JOHNNY MNEMONIC
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1995 Michael John Legeros
(Tri)
Directed by Robert Longo
Written by William Gibson, from his short story
Cast Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Takeshi, Ice-T, Dina
Meyer, Udo Kier, Denis Akiyama, Henry Rollins, and
Barbara Sukowa.
MPAA Rating "R" (presumably for language, violence, and gore)
Running Time 100 minutes
Reviewed at General Cinemas at Pleasant Valley, Raleigh (28MAY95)
==
We're back in BLADE RUNNER territory with this one, conceptual artist Robert Longo's vision of a William Gibson-inspired future where information is the commodity to kill for. Front and center is Johnny (Keanu Reeves), a "cyber-courier" who smuggles data via a "wet-wired" implant. He's ready to quit the biz and get a portion of his long-term memory restored, but, first, he has to finish one last, dangerous job..
The pressing problem in JOHNNY MNEMONIC is that Keanu Reeves seems to have forgotten how to play an action hero since his stint on SPEED. He's walking wood in a forest of stiffs that includes Henry Rollins, Ice-T, and Dina Meyer. (Dolph Lundgren's street preacher is in an acting category all its own. :-) Without a believable performance between them, all we can do is sit back and watch the atmosphere, which is pretty good in places. The VR sequences are way cool, but the physical FX--such as miniatures and mattes--leave a lot to be desired. Watch out for those bad blue-screens!
We wouldn't mind a minute of JOHNNY MNEMONIC if the action played better. Too bad the debut director isn't very strong in this de- partment. His big finale is a sloppy, silly mess that runs twenty minutes too long, which is way past the time that most of our "wet- wired" processors have already shut down.
BOTTOM LINE: YATF (Yet Another Tortured Future). Skip it.
Grade: D+
-- Michael J. Legeros Raleigh, North Carolina
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