Review of Johnny Mnemonic (1995) by Michael R — 13 Aug 2009

I'm not entirely sure where I sit with this. A lot has been changed from the story, sometimes to make it more visually stimulating, but other changes seem to drag it down. I like the cyberspace graphics; even though they're dated now considering that the film is over 10 years old and the story more like 20 they fit perfectly with the future-vision of the period. And they're pretty colourful, which keeps me happy. Jones hasn't been cut out (he was my favourite part of the original), the Lo-Teks are different but still pretty well done, and some of the new material worked reasonably well.

The performances are erratic and rather over the top, but this isn't necessarily terrible (though it doesn't exactly help that the most pleasing performance comes from a dolphin which may or may not be animatronic). However, what I really disliked was Jane's character, who is essentially Molly ripped about so badly that she loses any compelling qualities, and even attempts to make her sympathetic by giving her a nervous disease don't work.

To sum it up, it's not that great, but it wasn't the pile of stool water that I feared after reading the 'official' reviews.