Johnny Mnemonic
List Price:
Our Price: $1.99
You Save: $7.96 (80%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dennis Akayama, Dina Meyer, Ice-T, Keanu Reeves, Takeshi KitanoBrand: REEVES,KEANU
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1997-11-25
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Johnny Mnemonic
Movie Review: BAD MOVIE DELIGHTS await you lucky viewers in Johnny Moronic...er...Mnemonic.
Summary: 5 Stars
What makes so many bad movies so endearingly laughable? More to the point, what got the film Johnny Mnemonic nicknamed Johnny Moronic? The sight of high-paid Hollywood actors gamely trying and failing to utter dialogue that could have defeated Laurence Olivier, that's what. William Gibson may be a god to cyberpunks, but the screenplay he wrote of his own short story Johnny Mnemonic foists a terminal case of terrible chatter onto a cast that already had his plot to deal with.
Keanu Reeves is a "mnemonic courier" who has rented out so much of the memory space in his brain that he's now desperate to download data before "synaptic seepage" kills him (so much for your theories on what makes Keanu Reeves strange). How is it he has room up there to rent? "I had to dump a chunk of longterm memory--my childhood," he tells his vampy bodyguard Dina Meyer. When Meyer points out that if the villains who want what's in Reeves's head get hold of him, there's "going to be one dead Johnny," Reeves replies, "I'm gonna be dead anyway if I don't get this sh-- outta my head!" Which is exactly what the audience is thinking.
Reeves and Meyer call on "flesh mechanic" Henry Rollins, who can't do much for Reeves, but diagnoses Meyer as having the fatal virus that's killing half the planet. Pointing to plugged-in widgets all around him, Rollins claims that the virus is the product of "information overload, all the electronics around you poisoning the airwaves! What causes it? The world causes it! Technological f---ng civilization! But we still have all this sh-- 'cause we can't live without it!" (Like, it's the DVD player, not this movie, that's going to kill us.)
"Street preacher" Dolph Lundgren, decked out in robe, sandals and long blond locks to look like a born-again Michael Bolton, is good for a solid laugh when he tries to kill Reeves and Rollins, shouting "Come to Jesus!", but Johnny Mnemonic hits its high point when Reeves climbs atop a pile of garbage (no comment) and yells: "What the ---- is going on? What the ---- is going on? Listen, you listen to me! You see that city over there? That's where I'm supposed to be! Not down here with the dogs and the garbage and the f-----' last month's newspapers blowing back and forth! I've had it with them, I've had it with you, I've had it with all of this! I want room service! I want the club sandwich! I want the cold Mexican beer! I want a ten-thousand-dollar-a-night hooker! I want my shirts laundered like they do at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo!"
After that spectacular monologue, you're ready for anything, which is fortunate, because the answer to Reeves's and Meyer's problems turns out to come from a cheesy animatronic dolphin who resides in a large fish tank "set up to sample software from enemy subs--infrasound scan, right through the hull." Reeves is told, "He will teach you can-opener code." We'll leave you wondering what he does for Meyer's virus. Rest assured this fake mammal is not the answer to the film's problems. Then again, what can you do for a film in which even the extras have bad lines?
Summary of Johnny Mnemonic
In the 21st century, Johnny is a courier with a huge data storage chip in his brain. He is carrying smuggled information from a company that wants it back and is about to crash him permanently.Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: R
Release Date: 23-MAR-2004
Media Type: DVD
You might be tempted to call it "Johnny Moronic" after you've seen this illogical and derivative adaptation of William Gibson's cyberpunk short story (available in his book Burning Chrome), which is all the more depressing since Gibson himself wrote the screenplay. First you have to ask yourself why valuable top-secret electronic data would be stored in the "wet-wired" brain of a human courier (played by Keanu Reeves), who then transports the data from China to New Jersey as part of his last, most dangerous assignment. Surely there are better ways to transmit sensitive information, but since this is really just a conventional thriller with near-future design and spiffy special effects, Gibson and New York artist Robert Longo (making his directorial debut) are more interested in surface gloss and cyberpunk atmosphere. On that level the movie's fairly engaging, and Japanese film star Takeshi Kitano makes a pretty good villain, tracking Reeves down for the information in his data-packed brain. The movie also boasts an eclectic gallery of supporting players including rapper Ice-T, performance artist and rocker Henry Rollins, beefcake actor Dolph Lundgren, and transcontinental oddball Udo Kier. They can't stop this trip through virtual reality from being botched up, but sci-fi fans will certainly enjoy the echo of Gibson's fiction that remains on the screen. --Jeff Shannon
Similar DVD Movies
The 6th DaySCHWARZENEGGER,ARNO; Release date: 2001-03-27; DVD
Best price: $2.74
Price in other shops:
Last Action HeroSony; Release date: 1997-10-07; DVD
Best price: $5.26
Price in other shops:
A Walk in the CloudsFox; Release date: 2003-01-14; DVD
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
AssassinsSTALLONE,SYLVESTER; Release date: 1997-10-01; DVD
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
Speed (Widescreen Edition)REEVES,KEANU; Release date: 2005-02-01; DVD
Best price: $5.92
Price in other shops:
Point Break (Pure Adrenaline Edition)TCFHE; Release date: 2006-10-03; Published: 2006-10-01; DVD
Best price: $24.45
SoldierWHV; Release date: 2010-11-09; DVD
Best price: $3.12
Price in other shops:
Demolition ManWarner Brothers; Release date: 2010-11-09; DVD
Best price: $3.02
Price in other shops:
Street KingsTCFHE; Release date: 2008-08-19; DVD
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Chain ReactionFOX Home Entertainment; Release date: 2001-05-22; DVD
Best price: $4.66
Price in other shops: