“Snatch back your brain, zombie! Snatch back your brain and hold it.”
What’s it all about? This is the actual prologue before JOHNNY MNEMONIC, which is presented in scrolling red/white lens flare text that could only be found in the 1990s: “Second decade of the 21st Century. Corporations Rule. The world is threatened by a new plague: NAS. Nerve Attentuation Syndrome, fatal, epidemic, its cause and cure are unknown. The corporations are opposed by the Lo-Teks, a resistance movement risen from the streets: hackers, data-pirates, guerilla fighters in the Info Wars. The corporations defend themselves. They hire the Yakuza, the most powerful of all crime syndicates. They sheath their data in black ice, lethal viruses waiting to burn the brains of intruders. But the Lo-Teks wait in their strongholds, in the old city cores, like rats in the walls of the world. The most valuable information must sometimes be entrusted to mnemonic couriers, elite agents who smuggle data in wet-wired brain implants.”
Preface: I own JOHNNY MNEMONIC on both DVD and Blu-Ray, have seen the film half a dozen times and enjoyed each screening immensely. But it is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
JOHNNY MNEMONIC stars Keanu Reeves as Johnny, a mnemonic courier. After sacrificing his childhood memories, Johnny was able to make room for 80GB of storage capacity that he can rent out to the highest bidder for transport. In Beijing, Johnny meets two incredibly nerdy and jumpy scientists who require Johnny to transport 320GB of data to Newark, New Jersey. Even with the use of compression, this data transfer far exceeds Johnny’s limit — but he takes on the job regardless because Keanu Reeves is just like that. He doesn’t give a shit.
Because of the overload of data in his brain, Johnny becomes susceptible to psychological damage or even death if he doesn’t remove the data as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the transport of data from Beijing to Newark becomes complicated when Johnny discovers that the data in his brain is actually the cure to a plague — Nerve Attentuation Syndrome — which has effected half of humanity. Johnny is then chased across Newark by a slew of people after the cure for NSA. This includes the head of PharmaCon, Takahashi (Takeshi Kitano); the Lo-Teks, an anti-establishment group led by J-Bone (Ice-T); and a hired gun named the Street Preacher (Dolph Lundgren).
Johnny doesn’t deal with the pressure of his job very well:
There is a more detailed plot, like what everyone’s motives are and whatnot, but that all washes away when you take in the godawful CGI work throughout JOHNNY MNEMONIC. There are times throughout the film when I had no idea what was happening, where the characters were or who anyone was. This isn’t really the fault of the script (though it is terrible), but more because I was distracted by an extra who looked like Barbarella. It’s all kind of ridiculous — but you probably got that already by the prologue that I transcribed, right?
If you still don’t quite understand how this movie works, let’s just say that there is a dolphin in JOHNNY MNEMONIC that is a code breaker. His name is Jones. I repeat: There is a dolphin code breaker, and he serves an integral part of the plot. Jones can also somehow microwave people’s brains or something. I am not making this up.
Oh, and I needed to point out the below because, well, just look at this hilariousness:
This is what Johnny looks like when he's surfing the Internet.
This is what the Internet looks like when Johnny is surfing it.
Notes: Directed by Robert Longo; Produced by Staffan Ahrenberg, Don Carmody, Victoria Hamburg, Robert Lantos; Written by William Gibson; Starring Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Beat Takeshi, Ice-T, Dina Meyer, Henry Rollins, Udo Kier, Von Flores; Music by Brad Fiedel, Mychael Danna; Cinematography by François Protat; Editing by Ronald Sanders.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This movie is too amazing, I’m so happy it exists! And your review just says everything. I never quite know what’s happening either, even though I’ve seen it several times. Also I love how much of a complete asshole Keanu is in this movie. Like, what a douche, for no reason.
And the bodyguard lady wears a chain mail belly shirt! The future is awesome!
My owning the Blu-Ray is some kind of sign that the world is an amazing place.
I liked this movie when it came out. I’m not sure about seeing it again. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it.
I can’t tell if that’s a “I like this movie because it’s bad” or a “I like this movie because it’s good” comment — but either way, you should watch the movie again.