JOHNNY MNEMONIC
A film review by
I've got to admit that I'm suprised that no one has submitted a review of JOHNNY MNEMONIC yet, so here's my quick capsule report.
I caught JOHNNY MNEMONIC over the weekend. I had some good expectations, having browsed the Sony Web pages devoted to it. I saw it with a small crowd (having gone to the 12:40 showing).
First, let's talk about the story. While some parts were cohesive, the plot felt like it had been 'picked at'. There were some things that occured that seemed to deserve more discussion or coverage than they received. I had hoped for some more 'meat' on the future, but didn't really get any.
The plot, for those who haven't heard, is that Johnny--a mnemonic courier--is sent to get some critical data for a final run. He wants to get his Mnemonic data implant removed so that he can get part of his long term memory back, which he had to sacrifice to get the implant in the indeterminate past. The data he gets is hot, and the Yakuza (constantly mispronounced thorughout the film as Yak-ooze-a, instead of Yah-koo-zaa) are hired to retrieve the data. Johnny, meanwhile, has overloaded his storage capacity (how this is accomplished is never discussed, it's just assumed that an 80 Gig drive, doubled by hardware to 160 Gig, can hold 320 Gig (?) ). The data, it turns out, is the cure to a disease called NAS (an AIDS for the plugged-in set) that the corporation PharmaKOM has been hiding, so that they can make a huge profit in treating the disease, instead of curing it. Things get muddy from here.
Keanu Reeves seems to walk through the part, and Johnny ends up feeling like Keanu, distanced and impersonal. We never fully grasp Johnny as a character, or anyone else, really. This is partly because the plot never really gives you a chance to meet them, anyway. Too much happens so quickly, so that you're never sure what made it happen in the first place.
The effects are first-rate, and the cyberspace sequences are highly effective. The set designs are nice, as are the costuming jobs. Action is good, and the fight sequences are well staged.
All in all, I would recommend this for a matinee or a rental. It was a good watch, but unless you're a Gibson fan, or you really like Keanu Reeves, you probably won't like spending a lot of money to see this.
WizarDru@netaxs.com
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