Cyberpunk Cinema #2: Johnny Mnemonic (1995)https://medium.com/@SchrodsEars/cyberpu ... 3c064b48a6Cyberpunk: a genre of science fiction set in a lawless subculture of an oppressive society dominated by computer technology.
Here is a list of films I re-watch a lot in the vague hope that they will somehow be better: Prometheus, Southland Tales, The Cell, Skyline, The Crow: City of Angels, Escape from L.A. Top of that list however would probably be Johnny Mnemonic.
When word first came around that they were adapting cyberpunk godfather William Gibson’s short story from Burning Chrome for the screen, I was in absolute heaven. In my mid-teens I was immersed in William Gibson’s world, I read Neuromancer (very slowly) and Burning Chrome (very quickly) and loved Gibson’s portrayal of a world of criminality and corporate control in a world dominated by technology and the future of this thing they called ‘The Internet.’ I had also recently watched Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner for the first time so I wanted to see more of that.
The film adaptation of the short had gone through a few incarnations at that time. Val Kilmer had been attached to the part and it was intended to be a lower budget and more artful piece initially with something to say about memory. Gibson had written the screenplay himself and then red hot thanks to Speed, Keanu Reeves was signed on to play Johnny. The rest of the cast was filled out with the eclectic likes of Dolph Lundgren, Henry Rollins, Ice-T, Dina Meyer, Udo Kier and Takeshi Kitano. Visual artist and first time feature director Robert Longo was the one in the director’s chair. An initial trailer shown on morning television fired up my brain and for pretty much the entirety of 1995 I was amped for this film in a way that I hadn’t been for anything since Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. It didn’t help me none that all the previews and predictions were saying this was going to be the new Blade Runner. So May 1995 rolls around, Johnny Mnemonic dies at the US box office and is the subject of poisonous reviews. In the U.K I would have to wait until February 1996 to finally see the damn thing.
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The word is that something happened between this projects inception and Keanu signing on for the part. Basically studio Tri-Star wanted to capitalise on the success of Speed and wanted another Keanu starring action movie, and why not? It makes sense from a business point of view. The film was then recut by the studio for domestic release so the rather clever junkie cyber dolphin is excised in favour of a random dolphin with a virtual reality helmet and a lot of the character stuff with Johnny being kind of a prick is dropped along with the memory stuff in favour of your bog standard action hero performance. The Japanese got an admittedly superior cut of the film; with some of this stuff back in an additional fifteen minutes and an alternate superior score. Mostly though the alternate footage gives Takeshi Kitano more screen time and his wallowing in memories of his dead daughter is an interesting counterpoint to our hero — a man who has had this capacity removed. The Japanese version certainly has better performances and the edit is more relaxed somehow, the world feeling bigger than the claustrophobic western edit. Though it is better overall, the longer cut has the same problems that the domestic version has and what it really comes down to is this — Robert Longo is not an action or performance director.
Johnny Mnemonic the film is, at least visually, William Gibson’s world brought to life. The production design is cool; it’s all sleek hotel lobbies and nightclubs mixed with a more underground scene of disused tech and street cybernetic implants. The internet as it is shown here is something that may yet come to pass if this current VR fad takes off. The problem is that within this world we are weighed down by bad performances and worse set pieces. Keanu tries his best but when he tries some of the heavy lifting of Johnny discovering his humanity he just gives birth to the infamous ‘I want room service!’ speech. Dina Meyer is spunky but given nothing to work with and you get a bog standard Ice-T freedom fighter performance. It’s only really Dolph Lundgren and Henry Rollins who are any good, but even they flounder when not given any direction from a director who should have learned what a performance is. The film is filled with Longo fluffing potentially pulse quickening action scenes; everything feels like cardboard just being moved around marks on a set. A scene where a cybernetic Dolph is run over by a van is utterly laughable and definitive proof that Longo was ill suited for this task.
Johnny Mnemonic is to Blade Runner what Ultraviolet is to The Matrix, a film loaded with potential that looks nice that was ruined thanks to some bad decisions early on. It has a cool soundtrack though and the Japanese cut is worth a look if you haven’t seen this for a while though it has dated badly. Just from the alternate opening of the longer version you can tell there was massive potential here. Longo never directed another feature, and apart from the little seen New Rose Hotel we never got another worthwhile William Gibson based movie. It sucks because Gibson’s world is a rich one with as much potential as the endless adaptations of Philip K.Dick stories. I guess we will have to wait for that Neuromancer adaptation to churn its way out of development hell.