The Lawnmower Man

Summary

“The treatments have to continue… we have no choice!”

In the early and mid-Nineties, the country was full swing into the personal computing revolution. For the first time, families across the country had a computer in their home. Modems were becoming more commonplace and America Online would soon entice millions of people into using email by gluing floppy discs holding the program into national newspapers. I was obsessed with technology as a kid, and one of the hallmarks of technological progress in the early Nineties was the advent of virtual reality. What was it? What would we do with it? The possibilities seemed endless. As digital realms became more popular thanks to first person shooters and games like Myst, it was only a matter of time until Hollywood began to cash in on the virtual reality craze. The most well-known film to come out of this short period was The Lawnmower Man.

Directed by co-writer Brett Leonard, and produced by New Line Pictures, the film claimed to be based on a story by Stephen King. What was incredibly unique about this claim was that the film has almost nothing to do with the titular story aside from one sequence involving a telekinetically controlled lawnmower. In fact, Stephen King sued and won. His lawsuit barred New Line from attaching his name to the project for all future releases. Don’t let that issue get in the way of enjoying the film, because the script is enjoyable in its own way. It may not bear the hallmark of master storyteller Stephen King, but there is plenty of originality in what the film presents.

As the film begins, a trained chimpanzee that has been used in virtual reality experiments named Rosco escapes into the real world. Wearing a visor and some equipment it attacks some security guards as it makes its mistake. The chimp stumbles upon a simpleton lawnmower who lives in a shack inside a garden behind a church. His name is Jobe (Jeff Fahey.) Jobe and Rosco hit it off because Rosso reminds Jobe of a comic book character named Cytoman. Professor Larry Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) arrives and tries to stop his colleagues from killing Rosco to no avail. The death of Rosco causes Jobe to have a breakdown. The company offers the priest money to disregard the incident that happened on his property. The priest whips Jobe for penance for his disobedience. Professor Angelo decides that he can use the mentality of Jobe to test experiments on human intelligence using virtual reality. He offers to make Jobe smarter. Jobe agrees to the experiment and soon becomes much more intelligent. Jobe soon finds himself capable of wooing a local woman (Jenny Wright) and outgrowing his much younger friend Peter. As Jobe becomes more intelligent, he develops powers within and outside of virtual reality. To Professor Angelo’s great disappointment, Jobe also becomes dangerous as he develops God like capabilities.

The Lawnmower Man is not by any means a perfect film, but for fans of the cyber cinema of the Nineties, this might be the best loved film to ever deal with virtual reality. The film benefits from strong casting with both Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey dedicating themselves to their roles. Fahey is great as the ever evolving Jobe. Brosnan is great as the protagonist that bears some similarity to Dr. Frankenstein. Character actors Geoffrey Lewis, Dean Norris, and Jenny Wright are also enjoyable in the film. 

The script of the film is ridiculous but also inventive and entertaining. At the time that the film was written, nobody really had a good feel for what virtual reality was or what it could be. In some ways the film feels like a throwback to science fiction pieces from the Fifties that wanted to warn of the latest technological breakthrough and the dangers it could pose to humanity. In The Lawnmower Man, those dangers involve cyberspace and VR. While the premise is on its face pretty silly, the execution by Britt Leonard and his team is well done. 

On a medium-sized budget, Leonard drew some really striking imagery out of the well developed production designs and the well thought cinematography by Russell Carpenter. The imagery was so striking that most of that crew was enlisted by James Cameron to help on the films True Lies and Titanic. In fact, Russell Carpenter is cinematographer for Avatar 2 which is in production currently. Britt Leonard knew that the traditional VFX teams from Hollywood could not create the massive amount of VR sequences within the confines of the budget so he approached smaller effects technology firms in Silicon Valley to help him. The resulting effects are very much of their time, but also have a hallucinogenic quality that I enjoyed. I was impressed by what he was able to accomplish.

The film was first released in theaters in a truncated version that ran 108 minutes. The Director’s Cut was significantly longer, running 140 minutes. This is certainly one of the cases where I would actually recommend the Director’s Cut. The film flows very well in this cut and the character development is much richer. The Theatrical Cut was only given middling reviews by critics, but I wonder what would have happened if they had been able to view the original vision for the film. Thankfully, Shout! Factory’s collector’s edition of the film includes both cuts so that fans can compare and contrast the two versions. While critics may not have been entirely kind to the film, audiences responded well to the film and helped it to gross $32 million on a $10 million budget. This helped pave the way for more cyber cinema which included films like Johnny Mnemonic and Virtuosity. I have always enjoyed The Lawnmower Man and I am glad to own it in this deluxe edition. 

Video

Shout! Factory have done an excellent job on their transfer of the film using an MPEG-4 AVC codec from a new 4K scan of both the Theatrical and Director’s Cut. The 1.85:1 image looks great for the most part with excellent fine detail and a fine grain over the image. The cinematography by Russell Carpenter is stylized and colorful. It translates well to the Blu-ray format. Fans of the film will be pleased by the work that Shout! put into the release, but I think first time viewers will be just as entranced by the virtual reality graphics of yesteryear and cinematography in the film.

Audio

Shout! Factory have provided an immersive and well mastered DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround track. The film begins mostly dialogue driven, but the action kicks into overdrive in the second half of the film. Between the live action sequences and virtual reality scenes, the final third of the film becomes pretty active. This is a good track with strong fidelity to the original elements.

Supplements:

DISC ONE: THEATRICAL CUT

• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Brett Leonard and Writer/Producer Gimel Everett – an archival track with Leonard and his producing partner Everett that was originally recorded for the laserdisc release. 
• Cybergod: Creating The Lawnmower Man – This nearly hour long making-of restrospective includes interviews with Co-Writer/Director Brett Leonard, Actor Jeff Fahey, Editor Alan Baumgarten, Make-up Effects Artist Michael Deak, and Special Effects Coordinator Frank Ceglia. Fans of the film will be extremely pleased by the depth of detail that the film dives into the production of the film. This is well worth your time.
• Deleted Scenes
• Original Electronic Press Kit 
• Edited Animated Sequences
• Theatrical Trailer 
• TV Spot
• Hidden Easter Egg

DISC TWO: DIRECTOR’S CUT

• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Brett Leonard and Writer/Producer Gimel Everett – this is the same track as the first disc but incorporates additional remarks for footage that’s been added.
• Conceptual Art and Design Sketches 
• Behind-the-Scenes and Production Stills 
• Storyboard Comparison
• Hidden Easter Egg

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.5/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 5/5

Overall – 4.5/5

The Lawnmower Man set the standard for the cyber cinema that had a brief but enjoyable run in the Nineties. As a film, there are definitely some moments that don’t work completely, and the premise itself is questionable if you think about it for very long. That said, when this film was made, nobody really had any idea what Virtual Reality would be capable of doing. In fact, even today we are just in the beginning of  seeing what these types of technology will be capable of doing in teh future. Like most science fiction films, the writers chose to warn of the potential capabilities of a technology that was still not understood fully. This is the same as the ways in which films in the Fifties portrayed radical technologies such as nuclear tech or space age tech. We are afraid of what we don’t understand. In this way, The Lawnmower Man is a very traditional science fiction film. Are parts of it somewhat laughable? Sure. Then again, the film always has its heart in its right place, the actors give it their all, and the cinematography is great. On top of that, the film has visual effects that have a hallucinogenic quality that has all but faded from films today. There is a lot that I like about the film, even if critics seemed to struggle with the abbreviated Theatrical Cut. Fans of the film will be delighted by the strong technical specs and wonderful supplements that Shout! Factory has given this release. I have owned it since it was released, and it is one that I pop on for fun every couple years.