That Johnny Mnemonic review

So a review of the 1995 Keanu Reeves film, Johnny Mnemonic, was promised previously on Cold Emphasis.  While at the time it was promised, I had recently viewed the film, by now, it is far from fresh in my memory now, so a proper review is not forthcoming.  (If you want that, here is a classic from videogum (also, Videogum, RIP, apparently. That blows.), or for the slightly more serious cinephiles, Roger Ebert has taken the time to have a good laugh at the film himself:

one of the great goofy gestures of recent cinema, a movie that doesn't deserve one nanosecond of serious analysis but has a kind of idiotic grandeur that makes you almost forgive it

He gives it two whole stars, and a review which you may think is pretty bad, until you read  his review for Masterminds.)

I think the quote I pulled from his review just about sums the film up: idiotic grandeur is right!  This film, more than any other Keanu Reeves film (except for possibly the last Matrix movie) cannot be watched without irony (and maybe a bit of pity for Dolph Lundgren, who's career arc took a sharp turn after this one).  What I love about Keanu is that this film did not seem to derail his career at all.  Sure, maybe if hadn't done this he would have been cast in Titanic and become what DiCaprio is now, but he survived Johnny Mnemonic and would become even bigger with the Matrix a few years later.  It certainly seemed to end the directing career of Robert Longo and it should have ended Henry Rollins'.

I recall it being a pretty tough movie to get through, as the absurdity of the production design and Keanu's full commitment to the genre can't quite make up for the writing, and the trio of Lundgren, Rollins and Ice-T doing a lot of bad over-acting.

If this film had been made by the Wachowskis (and re-written, or made without dialogue) I could see it being good, as the source material, by William Gibson, is pretty great.

A must-see, but only for Keanu-completists, Henry Rollins-completists, and those nostalgic for the idea of a cyberpunk future we are decidedly not living in now.