Review of Johnny Mnemonic (1995) by Josh%20 B — 12 Feb 2018

Three stars for a critic-destroyed piece of garbage? Yes, because this cyberpunk movie has a lot to give. I think that this is the experiment before Matrix's worldwide success. Even the main actor is the same: Keanu Reeves, in one of his not-very-well actings.

I mean that the acting is not very convincing and maybe it could have been represented much better. After that, it is important to say that in this motion picture there are too many special effects: in some scenes they're so many that I almost had a headache.

One of this movie's original and well-thought aspects is the plot, a typical cyberpunk one: in 2021 world, Johnny is an informatic delivery man, he stores lots of data and information in his brain with special items; he has to deliver 320 GB of data from Pekin to Newark, while his brain's maximum capacity is less than 200 GB.

Anyway, he does accept this job because he needs money. But, because of a coding error, he knows what type of information he's transporting: these are the cure for a mortal disease, called "nerve attenuation syndrome", caused by technology overusing.

This cure has been discovered by Pharmakom, a multinational company, who hasn't revealed it yet: they want to propose the patients a life cure, so patients will pay for the rest of their lives. While Johnny is in Newark, the Yakuza (the society who has stolen the data) is pursuing him.

He eventually meets Jane, a girl with NAS. She knows how to help Johnny so she brings him to Spider, an ex-doctor, who helps Johnny by sending him to the headquarters of the Resistance. There a dolphin, called Johnson, controls every single camera the Resistance has stolen and cracked.

While they are emptying Johnny's brain, the Yakuza breaks into the building so after a tough struggle Johnny manages to empty his memory and cure Jane with the data he was carrying. So the plot isn't silly or nonsense, it's actually a good one.

So all in all, the only thing that this dark star needs to bright, is a more convincing acting. Despite that (and, perhaps, the headache-inducing special effects) "Johnny Mnemonic" is a good movie, who has been the first to show a future cyber world, maybe without the same fortune as Matrix.