The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Director:

Brett Leonard

Writers:

Stephen King (title only) (credit removed following lawsuit)
Brett Leonard (writer) ...

Release Date:

6 March 1992 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Horror | Romance | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

God made him simple. Science made him a god.

Plot:

A simple man is turned into a genius through the application of computer science.

Plot Keywords:

Virtual Reality | Intelligence | Scientist | Computer | Bare Back

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Jeff Fahey	...	Jobe Smith
Pierce Brosnan	...	Dr. Lawrence Angelo
Jenny Wright	...	Marnie Burke
Mark Bringleson	...	Sebastian Timms
Geoffrey Lewis	...	Terry McKeen
Jeremy Slate	...	Father Francis McKeen
Dean Norris	...	The Director
Colleen Coffey	...	Caroline Angelo
Jim Landis	...	Ed Walts
Troy Evans	...	Lieutenant Goodwin
Rosalee Mayeux	...	Carla Parkette
Austin O'Brien	...	Peter Parkette
Michael Gregory	...	Security Chief
Joe Hart	...	Patrolman Cooley
John Laughlin	...	Jake Simpson

Also Known As:

Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man
Virtual Wars (Japan: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language, sensuality and a scene of violence.

Runtime:

107 min | USA:140 min (director's cut)

Country:

UK | USA | Japan

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:14 | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:16 | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R

Company:

Allied Vision

Trivia:

The shot of Dr. Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) releasing Jobe with a badly damaged head from the strobe was realized using a mannequin with a plaster head.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Dr. Angelo, remarking on Jobe's progress with Latin, says that he himself took a year to learn just the Latin alphabet, which is still in use, plus a few letters, as the English alphabet. (In mitigation, he could be referring to the difficulty in reading ancient manuscripts, though this seems unlikely in context.)

Quotes:

Jobe Smith: ...my birth cry will be the sound of every phone on this planet ringing in unison.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Pierce Brosnan/Destiny's Child (#26.18)" (2001)

Soundtrack:

State of Shock

Worth a second look

Last week I had occasion to see this movie again, and I was surprised that it wasn't as offensive as I remember. The Lawnmower man came out in 1992, the year before the Internet hit the big time. Now that these 'VR futurists' have been shown wrong (and you can tell from the interviews that they were serious), one can watch it as a fantasy, rather than science fiction. In this respect it holds up: the computer graphics are beautiful, if a little dated, and a couple of restored scenes (in the director's cut or the DVD) make the story more compelling. Perhaps VR will deliver on its promises someday; meanwhile, there's a fairly good story here.

p.s. Stay far away from the sequel. It was just plain bad.