JOHNNY MNEMONIC
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman
No one I have known has actually ever accused Keanu Reeves of being able to act. This film will change no one's mind. Johnny (Reeves) keeps a straight face throughout the whole film. If we are looking to give him credit it must be that the plot is so ridiculous, no one could have done any better.
The film opens with a big splash across the screen: INTERNET. Innocent me, I thought maybe at last they have made a movie based on real scientific electronic know-how. Forget it. That is the last of any credible science fiction.
In the 21st Century, the most important asset is information. To keep things secret and unavailable to competing corporations, "mnemonic couriers" are employed. Johnny is a professional courier who has a chip implanted in his brain (did I say "brain?"). Into this chip containing thousands of gigabytes of memory, Johnny is supposed to store the information he has stolen. As in everything, there is a price and the price Johnny must pay for what he gets is that his own childhood memory is removed to make room for the chip. Little wonder he looks befuddled.
Others in this mess are Dona Meyer, Ice-T, Takeshi, Denis Akiyama, Dolph Lundgren and a mysterious ghostly Barbara Sukowa, a strange ghost in cyberspace. Very weird film.
Directed by Robert Longo.
1 byte 4 Bytes = Superb 3 Bytes = Too good to be missed. 2 Bytes = So so. 1 Byte = Save your money.
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