The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Virtual reality has been one of the most hyped, and one of the most disappointing, promises of technology.  While it promotes immersion into a cybernetic world what it really provides are video games with 20-year-old graphics and the occasional bruise when one accidentally hits a closet door.  In the case of The Lawnmower Man what it is promising is that something with graphics just a little bit better than Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" video will somehow change the world and alter humanity.

It was laughable then and it is laughable now.  The only person not laughing was Stephen King, who demanded that his name be removed from all future advertising for the movie because he never wrote this.  The story, of which a short film was made in the 1980s, involves a man unwittingly hiring a Greek god to mow his lawn and, after said god creates a spectacle, paying for the landscaping with his life.  It's only a few pages and, in my opinion, it is one of King's worst short stories.  It was another one of those adaptations where I wondered what was supposed to be done with so little.  The answer was taking the existing script of a movie called Cyber God, throw in a few King references, rename it after one of his properties the studio owns and call it a day.

Dr. Larry Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) is a computer scientist working in cutting-edge developments with virtual reality.  The company he works for, VSI, receives a good portion of its funding from the Department of Scientific Inquiry, a shady government organization also known as the Shop.  They want Dr. Angelo's work for military purposes and, when one of the chimpanzees breaks out and kills two guards, it seems Angelo's research has hit a dead end.  That is until he starts wondering about the local boy Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), known as the Lawnmower Man.  Jobe is developmentally disabled and a ward of the local church, where he is forced to do caretaking work for Father McKeen (Jeremy Slate) and works with the priest's brother Terry (Geoffrey Lewis) to earn his pay.

Angelo discovers his programs make Jobe smarter, to the point where his brain power grows at an amazing rate.  Through Angelo's boss Timms (Mark Bringelson) the Shop finds out what he is up to and they once again demand finding a military application.  This results in Jobe becoming something more than human and deciding that he wants to do something about the mess that humanity has made of the world. 

The script was written by director Brett Leonard and Gimel Everett, with the only bit of King's story remaining being a conversation between Angelo and a police lieutenant (Troy Evans) concerning a murder with a lawnmower.  Otherwise, this is a mashup of "Flowers for Algernon" and Colossus: The Forbin Project.  It's also not the most flattering portrayal of a mentally disabled adult.  I would argue that this had quite a bit of influence on the fictional movie Simple Jack from Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder.  

While the director's cut is not as much of a mess as the original theatrical version it is still quite a long, drawn-out bit of nonsense.  It contains lots of shots of Angelo making recordings while shirtless so Brosnan can show off his James Bond-in-training physique, promises depictions of cybersex that never actually happen while filling the film with all the usual stock characters that keep the plot going.  There is even a precocious kid next door (Austin O'Brien) that needs saving at the end.  

Then there are the effects.  CGI was still in its infancy and I can understand that many of the computer effects in this were supposed to look like an early 3-D game.  That still is not an excuse for when one of the characters is killed by fire and it looks worse than an effect on a Nintendo or Sega of the time.  If that was the point, that the killing is done by bringing the virtual world into ours, then the point isn't made well.  There are some later scenes where this is a bit more obvious, like when Jobe de-rezzes people, but it is still light years behind much of what was already being done at the time.  Ghost in the Machine, a cheap knockoff of this film combined with Wes Craven's Shocker, is less embarrassing on the effects.  The scary thing is that much of what is in modern VR is not much better than what is in this movie. 

While this mess is much more watchable when one knows what they are getting into it doesn't change the fact that this movie wasn't too good when it came out and is only a bit more entertaining now because of how serious it takes itself.  VR has never been anything life-changing and, at most, it provides someone a little exercise if they have the room to play some of the more arcade-oriented games.  Otherwise, it is still a pipedream, more likely to give one a headache while the sweat profusely into the headgear than to improve anyone's intelligence.  At least a watch of The Lawnmower Man leaves one with the idea that they should have watched a different movie, which I guess leaves the viewer a little smarter. 

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Time: 108 minutes

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Jeff Fahey, Mark Bringelson

Director: Brett Leonard