Johnny Mnemonic

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Most movies that have some success are generally accepted as the great work of a director. I have always thought this was a bad deal since the movie wouldn't have existed without the person who came up with and wrote the story. Jurassic Park was such a great Steven Spielberg movie... pshaw, that was a great concept by Michael Chrichton, Spielberg just directed it but he gets all the credit.

Johnny Mnemonic proves that a director IS important (which takes some of the air out of my argument about directors). This is a great story with such bad execution you can't help buy laugh at it. When the credits rolled I was shocked to see that the screenplay was written by William Gibson. If you have ever read his books you know that this turd couldn't have come from him...

I am going to say that Johnny Mnemonic ran afoul in a couple of departments. Firstly the director did a piss-poor job. The acting is bad... not just bad but... B A D. The actors themselves aren't bad actors in general (Keanu accepted) but you need a good director that gets the actors to give a good performance and this director did not do this. Robert Longo was a music video director and needless to say this was his first and last movie. He was like Russell Mulchay but with less talent.

I would also blame the producers and the fact that Gibson didn't seem to have anyone there to edit his screenplay. I thought the story was a little too convoluted which would probably play out fine in a book but not in an hour and a half movie. The characters of the Pharmacom AI ghost and the Pharmacom Executive could have been cut out as well as one of the highlights: Dolf Lundgren's Street Preacher.

The story itself is great and hadn't been done in this particular way before. Even with the unnecessary characters most people couldn't get pas the acting... sheesh.

With that said let's enjoy the scenes of the Street Preacher... Halt Sinners!

I love William Gibson's Neuromancer universe (also known as Cyberpunk or Netunner). I loved his books and the NetRunner CCG (based on that universe). As crappy as this movie can be there is still that Cyberpunk element here and that's why I can't just write off this movie and move on.

Since Hollywood is so into remakes they should remake this movie. I would say they should have made Neuromancer but I think that was probably their original thought but decided that story wouldn't do well on screen so they asked Gibson to write something 'more accessable' to the public.

As a side note in the end Johnny Mnemonic didn't do too bad overall. The movie cost was around 25 million and world wide the movie made 52 million.

Review: Demolition Man

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Today I am reviewing the movie Demolition Man. This is one of those movies universally panned but I'd like to be someone who stands up for it... ok, maybe not as much I'd stand for a movie like Star Wars, but I'd like to stand never the less.

Demolition man rated 63% on the tomato meter at RottenTomatoes.com. Not a a completely bad thing on the whole but any sort of movie buff will generally spurn this movie. BluRay.com rated this movie
 4.5 out of 5 for video quality (of the BluRay) and 4 out of 5 for the audio.

This review is based on the BluRay I got for Christmas. I also got a surround sound system for Christmas and this is the first movie I watched using it. Unfortunately the surround sound system only has component inputs for stuff like a BluRay. This stops the BluRay from utilizing it's surround sound ability so this made my viewing a little crappy. I have since remedied this by buying a digital audio cable to connect the two so I might have to go back and watch this at a later time.

Demolition Man is what it is. The title isn't Thoughtful Thinking Man or Compassion Man... no, it's DEMOLITION MAN. You can be assured that you will see lots of things blow up when you went to see this movie. It certainly delivered.

The movie is set in the future where a Utopian Los Angeles has arisen from 'The Big One' has ruined the old city. A sub cast of people live under the pristine city causing mayhem as they struggle for survival. The creator of this Utopian society secretly releases a uber violent criminal (played by Wesley Snipes) from cryogenic prison to kill off the leader of the sub cast (Dennis Leary). The police are totally incapable of dealing with someone so violent (since the Utopian society is so un-used to any kind of violence) that they resort to unfreezing the criminal's only real equal, a former police officer (Silvester Stallone).

The movie plays out as a Alice in Wonderland or Dorthy in Oz sort of plot where Stallone's character tries to adjust to life in 2023 while tracking down Wesley Snipe's character... all the while blowing stuff up.

I think this movie appeals because it uses a lot of that Dorthy in OZ for comic relief and provides enough action to keep the plot moving along. A real fun summer popcorn movie.

The soundtrack is interesting because there are some strange elements used to accent what is going on, on screen. A sort of hip-hop beat will start up out of no where when Wesley Snipe's character starts his shenanigans. I am sure that the audio rocks if you have the 5.1 surround sound setup.

Things go awry when Wesley Snipes becomes too much for the creator of the Utopian society to handle. Sylvester Stallone steps in and has a big battle (and eventually wins, what a surprise). The leader of the sub cast leads his people to surface to integrate back into society since the old leader is now out of the way (cause Snipe's character had him killed).

Sure, this is no Schindler's list but you can't measure it against that. It's a big budget shoot-em up and if you go in expecting that you will be pleased.