On video we saw...
Ben says: If you've read William Gibson's stories, Johnny Mnemonic should make you feel right at home. Very loosely based on the eponymous short story and with a screenplay by Gibson himself, I didn't find this as bad as everyone made out in the reviews, but then again, I'm a fan of that kind of fiction so what do I know, eh? A standard performance from Mr. Reeves, then and appearances from the great (but somewhat depressing) Henry Rollins and Ice-T in supporting roles, plus a cameo role from Mr. "Violent Cop" himself - Takeshi Kitano, pretty much accounts for the speaking portion of the cast, apart from the female muscle played by newcomer Dina Meyer.As Fi says, the graphics were pretty nicely done and the cyberspace interface looked almost plausible (shyeah right!), but the problem with the film was that it was far too loose and a lot of the tension was lost through flabby direction. Other than that, the film did make for a good couple of hours in front of the telly when there was nothing else to do.
Ben gives it: 
Fiona says: I have to say that I didn't think I was going to enjoy this film having read some slightly dodgy reviews about it but I was quite pleasantly surprised. The whole concept of having someone download their computer files into your head for you to take to someone else to have them upload the aforementioned is a bit yuk (that's a technical term used in the world outside professional journalism). However what's even worse is the notion that in order to do this job you have to have some of your memory taken away to free up the space for the special implant used to carry out this work.
Johnny (Keanu Reeves as if you didn't know) is the young man who has chosen the profession of data courier for reasons which are never fully explained. He accepts a new job on the grounds that it will pay enough money to have the brain implant removed and all memories of his childhood restored. Unfortunately his unscrupulous contact has sent him to an underground group who, unknown to Johnny, are expecting a courier with a much larger data capacity than he is equipped for. A point made at the beginning of the film is that overloading the 'chip' will result in cerebral drainage and death within 2-3 days. Johnny has a chip that will take 80 somethings (gigabytes I've just been told, thankyou Ben!) and he has a modification that will double its capacity. Normally that would be okay but when he arrives at the job he finds that he is required to have a capacity of 320 gigabytes. Naturally, being a bit of a cool dude, he doesn't let on about his lack of mental capacity!! and he allows the information to be loaded into his brain. The rest of the film is taken up with the chase to find someone that can download the data in his brain before the Yakuza (japanese version of the mafia) get to him and before good old Dolph Lundgren stabs him to death with a crucifix-shaped very sharp pointy thing. It should be noted that Dolph is playing a very unorthodox priest-like kind of person. Lots of people have artificial body parts, some visible others not, lots of people have guns and so as not to disappoint you all out there in TV land there is the usual big shoot out towards the end of the film.
The reason I have given this only 3 stars is because too many facets of the story are left unexplained, the soundtrack in places is far too overpowering (although it does feature some top quality musicians), the make up is very odd, it suffers from the usual 'mood lighting' effect which means everything in places is much too dark and the surprise member of the cast is, hopefully, not real. Other than that the computer graphics were very zippy and there were only a couple of instances where I felt as though the flickering lights were going to send me to somewhere I didn't particularly want to go. A good film for watching on video at home which is just what we did. That's all.
Fiona gives it:
last updated: 22nd September 1996
