This is not a terrible film as claimed, but it had faults: poor pacing; weak atmosphere (visuals were there, but insufficient music track to back them up); and its largely unexplained universe.
Ideally, you need to have read Gibson's short stories and "Neuromancer" first, and then all the props - cyberspace, 'black ice', grubby streets, brand-name hardware, Yakuza assassins, muscle grafts, etc - make sense. The "Blade Runner" style information dump was no substitute. Incidentally, many of these props appear cliched, but remember that Gibson more or less invented them; it's merely that this film appeared long after they had become standard movie fixtures.
Gibson's written work has fairly sparse dialogue, and makes heavy use of precise and rather introspective visual description to convey character. Perhaps this just doesn't translate well to film.
Ideally, you need to have read Gibson's short stories and "Neuromancer" first, and then all the props - cyberspace, 'black ice', grubby streets, brand-name hardware, Yakuza assassins, muscle grafts, etc - make sense. The "Blade Runner" style information dump was no substitute. Incidentally, many of these props appear cliched, but remember that Gibson more or less invented them; it's merely that this film appeared long after they had become standard movie fixtures.
Gibson's written work has fairly sparse dialogue, and makes heavy use of precise and rather introspective visual description to convey character. Perhaps this just doesn't translate well to film.