THE LAWNMOWER MAN (1992)

Studio:       New Line Cinema
Director:    Brett Leonard
Writer:       Brett Leonard, Gimel Everett
Producer:  Gimel Everett
Stars:     Jeff Fahey, Pierce Brosnan, Jenny Wright, Mark Bringleson, Geoffrey Lewis, Jeremy Slate, Dean Norris, Colleen Coffey, Troy Evans, Rosalee Mayeux, Austin O’Brien, John Laughlin

Review Score:

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Summary:

A research scientist turns a disabled man into a genius through experimental VR, but creates a cybernetic god in the process.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

When a chimpanzee test subject turns aggressive and attempts a violent escape at Virtual Space Industries, government liaison and supervisor Sebastian Timms temporarily suspends Dr. Lawrence Angelo’s ‘Project 5,’ which explores intelligence enhancement using VR technology. Larry bemoans being unable to advance his research to human trials while Timms clandestinely plots with The Director regarding the project’s military applications.

Larry’s wife Caroline leaves him because of his obsession with virtual reality. Larry observes mentally handicapped gardener Jobe Smith, who works for Terry McKeen’s Landscaping, as he mows the lawn next door and affectionately interacts with young neighbor Peter Parkette. Larry also sees Peter being abused by his father Harold, who beats Peter’s mother Carla as well.

Jobe returns to the small shed where he lives at St. Anthony’s Church. Father McKeen, Terry’s brother, whips Jobe with a belt for neglecting his maintenance duties at the church.

Larry invites Jobe and Peter over to play VR games in his basement lab. Afterward, Larry tells Jobe he can make him smarter using VR technology, and begins conducting research with Jobe as a human test subject.

Jobe becomes more intelligent as the VR experiments continue. Jobe also displays increased assertiveness when he grabs Father McKeen’s hand to stop another beating. He intervenes again when gas station greaser Jake Simpson gets physical with Terry McKeen after Terry makes a comment about attractive widow Marnie Burke.

Larry shows his progress to Timms, who agrees to allow Larry back into the VSI lab for further research. Larry hooks himself and Jobe into gyrosphere cybersuits to give the VR program access to Jobe’s nervous and endocrine systems.

Marnie Burke seduces Jobe while he mows her lawn. The two of them begin a sexual affair.

Jobe gets a sudden headache while at a diner with Peter. Jobe realizes he can read people’s thoughts through the pain. Larry is astounded to learn how far Jobe’s abilities are evolving.

Although Larry wishes to keep his new discoveries quiet, Timms reports Jobe’s accelerated learning to The Director. Despite the aggression factors that led to the chimpanzee’s violence, The Director insists that Dr. Angelo’s work resume incorporation of the original Project 5 formulas. Timms secretly swaps the vials Larry regularly injects into Jobe.

Following an intense session inside the VR apparatus, Jobe claims to have seen God in an apparent psychotic break. Larry suspends further treatments until he can determine what went wrong. Meanwhile, Jobe develops telekinetic powers.

Jobe brings Marnie to the VSI lab and hooks her into the VR simulation for virtual sex. Inside the machine, Jobe becomes a digital creature that terrorizes Marnie. Marnie returns to reality with a broken mind.

Timms secretly observes when Jobe shows Larry his mind control abilities. Jobe tells Larry that the experiments must continue because the advancements are important to mankind’s evolution.

Over Larry’s protests, Larry and Timms fly to Washington to present the project’s findings to The Director. Larry angrily storms out of The Director’s office when he learns Timms swapped the formula. The Director is intrigued by Timms’ revelation that Jobe apparently developed psychic powers. Back at the lab, Jobe self-administers more formula injections before putting himself inside the VR machine without supervision.

At their hotel, Timms reveals to Larry that The Director plans to bring Jobe to Washington by force. Larry realizes that The Director plans to have him forcibly taken as well. Larry subdues Timms and a government guard in order to escape before agents can pick him up.

Given a God complex from his newfound powers, Jobe goes to the church and digitally incinerates Father McKeen. Jobe next goes to the gas station and psychically subdues Jake with gas pump hoses before projecting a digital lawnmower man into Jake’s head. Finally, Jobe uses his powers to put Carla and Peter Parkette to sleep while he telekinetically chases and kills Harold Parkette with a lawnmower.

Larry returns home the next day and learns about the mysterious murders from police lieutenant Goodwin. Larry confronts Jobe. Jobe tells Larry that he plans to complete the last stage of his evolution by projecting himself into VSI’s mainframe computer and becoming pure energy with which he will purify the planet. Jobe adds that his birth cry will be the sound of every phone on Earth ringing in unison. Larry warns that the Project 5 formula gave Jobe a psychotic break and he is suffering from delusions.

After reading Larry’s mind, Jobe uses his telekinetic powers to restrain Larry to a chair. Armed government agents sent by The Director arrive outside Larry’s house. Jobe psychically projects his image and turns two agents into scattered molecules. Jobe summons Terry McKeen to drive him to VSI.

Peter finds Larry tied up in the basement and frees him. Larry remotely hacks into VSI’s database to upload a virus and isolate the mainframe from the network. Larry then has Carla Parkette drive him and Peter to VSI.

Terry’s truck breaches the gate at VSI when Jobe psychically swarms the armed guards with digital bees. A guard shoots and kills Terry. Jobe mentally manipulates the guard into turning the rifle on himself. Jobe confronts Timms and turns him into scattered molecules before getting into the VR sphere.

Larry arrives at the lab and begins planting timed explosives throughout the building. Larry realizes Jobe successfully projected himself into the mainframe when he find’s Jobe’s human body effectively disintegrated inside its cybersuit.

Larry straps himself into the second suit and sphere to confront Jobe inside cyberspace. Unable to exit the computer because Larry cut the network connections, Jobe battles Larry in VR.

Peter comes to the lab looking for Larry. Larry appeals to Jobe to spare Peter’s life. Jobe has a change of heart and allows Larry to exit cyberspace in order to save Peter.

Larry and Peter race back to Clara as the lab begins exploding. Just before the building is destroyed, Jobe finds an accessible route into the mainframe.

Larry returns home with Clara and Peter, and documents his intention to take his research underground. Larry is alarmed when he suddenly hears the sounds of phones ringing all over.

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Review:

“The Lawnmower Man” wears the crown for being the adaptation of a Stephen King work to least resemble its source material.  The film is so far removed from the original short story that King’s lawyers spent two years arguing a lawsuit against New Line, ultimately leading to the removal of “Stephen King’s…” from the title for essentially being misleading marketing.

Of the movie itself, King told the L.A. Times, “I think it’s pretty good.”  But the exploitive association of his name irked the author to remark, “it’s like taking a Mercedes hood ornament and putting it on a Chevrolet and selling it as a Mercedes.”

When “The Lawnmower Man” released theatrically in 1992, I was on a kick of catching up with “based on the novel/story by” materials before seeing a film.  I recall watching the trailer, reading a Fangoria piece, then briefly marveling, “Stephen King’s imagination was so far ahead of its time that he was writing VR-based science-fiction in 1975?”

Then I read the actual story in “Night Shift,” which takes about five minutes to do since it runs only nine or so paperback pages long.  This promptly led to a “Drink Your Ovaltine” moment when I realized the King quickie about a naked man ritualistically eating grass to power a demonic gardening tool had nearly nothing to do with the movie I’d been sold.

My left-brain would later understand the business logistics of why a studio would want the Stephen King tie, even though the produced screenplay connected to his text in name only.  At the time, my right-brain echoed King’s sentiment that the movie was “pretty good,” so I didn’t immediately grasp why it wasn’t promoted as an original entity.

Something else making “The Lawnmower Man” memorable is how definitively dated it is to the 1990s.  This doesn’t merely mean its CGI or what might now be considered a “quaint” depiction of virtual reality cyberspace.  On the contrary, the movie’s visuals hold up considerably well after 25 years, more so than many peers at any rate.  There are crime dramas on current TV with episodes featuring fake video games that look far more primitive than anything happening here.

What really roots “The Lawnmower Man” to its era are clichés of storytelling structure and characters sneaking past the radar before Clinton-era political correctness could pick up their pings.

As evidenced by a baggy Polo shirt and single gold hoop earring, this is a pre-Bond Pierce Brosnan playing Dr. Larry Angelo, a research scientist on the brink of a breakthrough with computer technology that can enhance intellect.  Angelo is so obsessed with virtual reality that he is casually dismissive about the man beating his wife and child next door, and barely musters a Willy Wonka-like protest when his wife walks out the door.

Meanwhile, Jeff Fahey plays mentally challenged gardener Jobe, a dead ringer doppelganger for Ben Stiller’s “Simple Jack” in mannerisms and costuming.  After losing his animal test subject in a one-chimp “Planet of the Apes” revolt, Angelo is more anxious than ever to take his research into human trials, and Jobe is an ideal candidate.

This being a 1990s scientific endeavor, it is naturally funded by a shadowy government organization interested only in the experiment’s military applications.  Looking like a baby-faced Reggie Bannister, Dean Norris plays big baddie ‘The Director,’ who regularly appears as a head giving orders to a bald lickspittle over a video screen.  Knowing that Norris became a fantastic actor well known for his role as Hank on “Breaking Bad” makes it acceptable to laugh at his awful performance here.  Norris seems to think a Shatner-esque cadence combined with a whisper is the preferred way to read as a stuffy megalomaniac.

Disparate agendas and surreptitious sabotage combine to create conditions where Angelo’s VR gyrosphere does more than project Jobe’s consciousness into cyberspace.  The machine manipulates Jobe’s mind into becoming something beyond human.  And his new powers enable the formerly mild-mannered man to become a digital monstrosity capable of recreating humanity in his image.

As for other aforementioned staples of 1990s cinema, action elements feature detonation devices with LCD countdown timers, jackbooted security guards in uniform jumpsuits toting assault rifles, and the kid from “Last Action Hero” too.  There is even a trio of bad fellas including a random gas station jamoke, that deadbeat dad, and an abusive priest, all of whom you know from the moment they are introduced have no purpose but to be beat on by Jobe when the climax comes.

Watching “The Lawnmower Man” a quarter-century after release, one wants to backseat criticize how neatly or unnecessarily staged every setup is.  The woman and boy next door should be Dr. Angelo’s wife and son for an extra emotional hook, rather than bother with a fed-up wife who disappears in the first act, for instance.  And the sexually charged side story with a seductive widow stinks of so much late night Cinemax pandering that the scent is still there nearly three decades later.

Yet when you look at the movie under the light of how affectionately it shows its age, the feeling of far-out fantasy hits a sweet spot for recently retro schlock.  Somewhat fun and somewhat silly, “The Lawnmower Man” is a hallmark of VR-themed science-fiction with a surprising amount of longevity.  At the very least, it remains more relevant than contemporary social media thrillers will be when their technological trends expire.

“The Lawnmower Man” may no longer be a stunning computer FX extravaganza.  It barely even qualifies as a Stephen King film.  But it does have more than mere nostalgia going for it in the entertainment department, provided overly on-the-nose characterizations and 1990s style are your bag.

Review Score:  60

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