Before watching for myself, I had only heard three things about The Lawnmower Man:
1) It has nothing to do with the Steven King story.
2) Somebody has virtual reality sex.
3) It’s not a good movie.

After watching the film, although I can confirm those first two points, I have to disagree emphatically with the last one. Obviously, I understand why someone would hate this film. I especially understand why a cinephile or a filmmaker would hate this film. And by most conceivable definitions of the word, it is by no means a “good” movie. It’s cliched, hackneyed, pretentious, portentous, over-dramatic, convoluted, and silly. And yet, not only is it incredibly entertaining, but it’s a total mindfuck. Honestly, this may be one of my new favorite movies of all time.

I think the most apt comparison I could make would be Zardoz (and not only because both star James Bond actors). Like Zardoz, The Lawnmower Man transcends standards of “good” and “bad.” It’s not merely “so bad it’s good,” but rather, half “so bad it’s amazing” and half just plain actually amazing - except usually those two halves are occurring simultaneously. I’ll spare you the schematic of my thoughts. In essence, while watching the film it’s a good idea to completely throw any ideas about intentionality out the window.

The plot amounts to what is essentially a poor man’s Videodrome, with a decent helping of Flowers for Algernon and Carrie thrown in for good measure. I can’t really elaborate on that without giving too much away, but when you watch it, you’ll know exactly what I mean, because the plot points are pretty much lifted directly from those three stories. None of the characters ever really rise above the level of generic archetypes, and whereas in most films that would most definitely be a negative thing, in this film the characters are so much generic archetypes that they become hilarious caricatures, and it becomes endlessly entertaining to watch just how cliche they’ll be next. It’s obvious that the writers paid a lot more attention to the ideas they were trying to get across than to character or narrative believability. And that’s great! Because let’s be honest, Videodrome ain’t exactly hailed for its great character development either, if you know what I mean.

And those ideas are laid on thick. Reeeaaaal thick. But (again, just as in Zardoz) that doesn’t mean they’re not interesting. Despite the bluntness, heavy-handedness, and melodrama, there’s a lot to sink your teeth into intellectually. Some familiar cyberpunk themes of the dangers of the posthuman and the blurring of boundaries between cyberspace and ‘meatspace’ are explored, as well as religious and sexual themes. One blogger interprets the primary theme of the film as being “the aspiration to become information,” and I think that’s pretty spot on. I’m sure if I was better versed in critical theory and transhumanism, I’d be able to have a field day analyzing this film to death.

Lastly, I couldn’t allow myself to finish this review without at least some mention of the RIDICULOUS special effects. Obviously, the N64-quality CGI seems incredibly dated - laughably so - but not only does it add to the nostalgic cyberpunk feel of the film, it’s also often legitimately creepy and unsettling in a way that fancier, more realistic graphics could never accomplish, thus adding to both the “so bad it’s amazing” and actually amazing factors. Not to mention how the complete lack of realism in the virtual world makes for a much more interesting contrast between that world and the real world.

Now I’m just looking forward to seeing Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe’s War!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 5:55 am and is filed under Film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.