DAMAGED Reconsiders: JOHNNY MNEMONIC!!!

In this new feature, DAMAGED Reconsiders takes a look back at much-maligned films to see if they were really all that bad...

JOHNNY MNEMONIC
Starring Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Takeshi Kitano
Directed by Robert Longo
Columbia Tri-Star Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

Everyone of us film-fanatics have a handful of movies that we'll going to our graves decrying, fists raised high in the air, that they are so completely underrated that the general public must be total morons to not see what we see. Lord knows that I've got mine, but the first one that always comes to my mind is the 1995 Keanu Reeves cyber-punk flick JOHNNY MNEMONIC.

(The second one that comes to mind, by the way, is POOTIE TANG.)

A precursor to THE MATRIX—Hell, it might as well be considered it's direct-blood grandfather—and based on a short story by William Gibson, I have always had a real love for this movie, seeing it on opening weekend (in an empty theater, natch) and even, if I remember clearly, writing a fan-fic sequel in my high school junior year creative writing class. I think it was called JOHNNY MNEMONIC 2: DIGITAL RESISTANCE. (Sure, looking back, that might have been kinda lame, but I did get an A+ for it.) Since then, I've always made it a point every so often to dig the movie out and spend an afternoon watching it; not once has my enjoyment in it ever waned.

Sadly, my VHS copy snapped about two or three years ago. It was one of the last video cassettes I actually owned until I finally did away with my VCR altogether, now that I think about it. I'd say it's been about that long since I have re-watched it. Just as I got to thinking about a few weeks ago, fate smiled upon me at, of all places, Big Lots, where they had just received in a shipment of $3 DVDs—and none of these were those public domain, badly-dubbed titles either; these were titles from Columbia, Warner Brothers, New Line, MGM...stuff that you'd actually pay much more for. And it was there that I found a Superbit (remember that?) DVD of JOHNNY MNEMONIC.

Watching it right now, it's still amazing to me that this was not a huge hit. It at least should have been up there with THE MATRIX as a cyber-cult classic. But, instead, it was the butt of a couple of jokes and relegated to the trash-bin of cinematic history. Shame. This is the type of sci-fi film that cult fans should have been creaming their jeans over; it's an over-the-top, insane jolt that goes out of it's way to entertain the Hell out of you, cramming in every futuristic action cliché in a tight 98 minutes running time—many of which I'm sure this movie invented.

It's the year 2021 and Reeves is the titular Johnny, an information courier, but instead of irritatingly weaving in and out of traffic on his ten-speed, his brain is wet-wired with a hard-drive that holds up to 160 gigabytes—how much storage my iPod holds, ironically enough. A large pharmaceutical companies, making bank due to a disease known as NAS, Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, an information overload disorder with no cure, is protected by the Yakuza (one of whom is a henchman with a bad-ass laser garrote-wire the comes out of his finger). When an info-transfer goes bad, Johnny finds himself mingling with the underground resistance, appropriately called the “Lo-Teks” and are led by Ice-T, playing basically the same character he did in TANK GIRL, minus the kangaroo mutation.

So, wanting to cut Johnny's head off to get the info out, the Yakuza hires the bounty-hunting services of the Street Preacher, leader of the Church of the Unrepentant. He's played by Dolph Lundgren, dresses like Jesus, has cybernetic implants and carries a crucifix that doubles as a huge knife. So sayeth the Lord. On the run, the gang goes to see techno-maven “Jones”, who is, awesomely enough, a freaking dolphin with wires and robotics jutting out of its skull. Turn's out the info in Johnny head is the cure for NAS and if he doesn't get it out ASAP, his brain fries, he dies and the cure is lost.

Besides the actors I've already mentioned, it's got a great supporting cast: Udo Kier, as a sleazy info-smuggler; the always crushable Dina Meyer, as a spunky bodyguard for hire; Henry Rollins, as a low-rent surgeon named Spider; and J-legend Takeshi “Beat” Kitano as a Yakuza boss who sits at his desk and is visited by the electrical ghost of the former head of the pharmaceutical company.

The production design is all nice and BLADE RUNNER-y, but what's really funny about JOHNNY MENMONIC is, when looking at all the computer hardware and what-not, how much of it is so prophetic while, at the same time, a lot of it is so dated. Released when the Internet was just becoming a household item, things like portable hard drives and online communities are accurately predicted, give or take some shoddy CGI. But, then again, a lot of it relies heavily on LAWNMOWER MAN-era virtual reality, complete with that heavy head-wear—we all see how that turned out. I’m not wearing a VR helmet while I load this onto the blog.

If I had one criticism of the film—and I think that this really isn't a criticism in the typical sense, as it actually makes the film better, if that makes sense—it is the dialogue. The screenplay was written by Gibson, and while his ideas are inventive, his characters getting it across…ummm, not so much. Every line is pulpy and hackneyed, forcefully delivered and almost every character at one point is given a near-parody Shakespearian soliloquy. But, as I said, here, it works. It works well with the insanity that's going on on the screen. Maybe the dialogue was meant to be this way? Maybe it’s over-the-top because that type of dialogue would only fit in a film so over-the-top itself?

JOHNNY MNEMONIC is an extremely entertaining cyber-punk flick that I’ll take any day over THE MATRIX. Really. It’s a film deserving of finding a cult and getting the recognition it deserves. And, even better, you only gotta pay three bucks for it at Big Lots—what a future we live in.