The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Director:

Brett Leonard

Writers:

Stephen King (title only) (credit removed following lawsuit)
Brett Leonard (writer) ...

Release Date:

6 March 1992 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Sci-Fi | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

God made him simple. Science made him a god.

Plot:

A simple man is turned into a genius through the application of computer science.

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Intelligence | Romance | Cyberspace | Computer Cracker

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Jeff Fahey	...	Jobe Smith
Pierce Brosnan	...	Dr. Lawrence Angelo
Jenny Wright	...	Marnie Burke
Mark Bringleson	...	Sebastian Timms
Geoffrey Lewis	...	Terry McKeen
Jeremy Slate	...	Father Francis McKeen
Dean Norris	...	The Director
Colleen Coffey	...	Caroline Angelo
Jim Landis	...	Ed Walts
Troy Evans	...	Lieutenant Goodwin
Rosalee Mayeux	...	Carla Parkette
Austin O'Brien	...	Peter Parkette
Michael Gregory	...	Security Chief
Joe Hart	...	Patrolman Cooley
John Laughlin	...	Jake Simpson

Also Known As:

Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man
Virtual Wars (Japan: English title)

Runtime:

107 min | USA:140 min (director's cut)

Country:

UK | USA | Japan

Language:

English

Color:

Color (DeLuxe)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:16 (video rating) | Iceland:14 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:16 | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R

Company:

Allied Vision Ltd.

Trivia:

Jenny Wright did only the close-ups in the VR strobe scene because the strobe light made her sick. Her wide-angle shots were done using a double, and the close-ups to her face were done with a blue screen so that she didn't have to move.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Dr. Angelo, remarking on Jobe's progress with Latin, says that he himself took a year to learn just the Latin alphabet, which is still in use, plus a few letters, as the English alphabet. (In mitigation, he could be referring to the difficulty in reading ancient manuscripts, though this seems unlikely in context.)

Quotes:

Dr. Lawrence Angelo: Jobe, listen to yourself right now. The first sign of psychosis is a Christ complex.
Jobe Smith: CyberChrist.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Revelation (1999)

Soundtrack:

Game of Hearts

Guilty Pleasure

"Lawnmower Man" is a favorite guilty pleasure of mine. The plot's ridiculous, the central conceit is never adequately explored or explained, the acting ranges from passable to bad to worse and the pacing is pretty flaccid for an action thriller.

However, the graphics are colorful eye candy and just go to show that CGI doesn't have to be bleeding edge to be effective. I think the graphics work so well because they are set in a virtual reality fantasy world. There is no need to strive for photorealism so the animators can just go wild with the psychedelic visuals. The end conflict between Jobe and Dr. Angelo has a lot of visual punch; I especially liked the Catholic symbolism. It also has some of the most cheesily quotable dialog in B-moviedom("Virtual reality was meant to expand human communication but YOU'RE NOT EVEN HUMAN ANYMORE!!").

Most people will tell you that the Director's Cut is the one to see, but I really think only marginally so.The director's cut does make some significant changes to the plot and fleshes out many of the characters to a much greater degree but with a plot so lame and characters so boring is that really a good thing? The Lawnmower Man's impact is in it's visuals which are pretty much intact in either version.

Either way, grab some crackers to go with this huge helping of early 90's cheese.