Back to 2021 - A Johnny Mnemonic (1995) Review

A human hard drive exploring a high tech future - and movie - gone wrong.

Released in 1995 to a tepid box office and lukewarm critical reception, Johnny Mnemonic remains one of the only works by novelist William Gibson to reach the silver screen. Based on Gibson’s short story of the same name, Johnny Mnemonic is set in the same bleak, genre defining cyberpunk future as his seminal novel Neuromancer.

Unfortunately, all of that book’s intelligence, charm, and atmosphere is nowhere to be found in Johnny Mnemonic, despite Gibson himself penning the screenplay. After reading his Alien 3 screenplay, which even he wasn’t happy with, I’m forced to wonder if his dense worlds and often fatalistic character arcs translate to big budget Hollywood flicks.

If nothing else, Johnny Mnemonic is a flawed experience with a few points of brilliance.

A pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves stars as the titular protagonist, a sort of human hard drive used to smuggle data. In the bleak future of 2021, ruled by bloated corporations and wracked by an elusive virus, a botched transfer sees Johnny evading hired killers while looking to fix the “data seepage” that will soon kill him.

Amusing if concerning present day parallels aside, the high tech premise ends up doubly dated. But Gibson’s work was never particularly interested in the feasibility of its futuristic technology but rather the human, societal, and philosophical implications.

That gives Johnny Mnemonic a certain longevity offset by anachronistic technology, dated CGI, and the worst aspects of the 90s action movie.

Reeves himself gives a very poor showing. His particular brand of non-acting hadn’t been refined yet and so the garishness and artificiality of the film are magnified as he blunders through the story. A characterful group of allies and adversaries dot his path, though they don’t offer much more.

Augmented bodyguard Jane (Dina Meyer) gives a jumbled performance and little to work with. While a lot of the more interesting — and perhaps less palatable — ideas didn’t make it out of the short story, I’m thankful that this wasn’t iconic “razorgirl” Molly’s first and so far only big screen appearance with Jane taking her place.

Meanwhile the augmented, crucifix-knife wielding Street Preacher (Dolph Lungdren) in some way feels like a microcosm of this film: bizarre, pushing the boundaries of taste, and yet strangely watchable. Lungdren conjures the sort of performance you’d expect from a character who proclaims “Jesus time!” when ambushing a character.

In contrast, J-Bone (Ice-T), leader of the anti-establishment scavengers known as “Lo-teks,” is nothing short of deadly serious. He marauds decaying urban ruins in what looks to be ski goggles, fully inhabiting the part. Ice-T’s performance doesn’t offer the introspection I read Gibson’s work for but it’s certainly entertaining. Spider (Henry Rollins) fields a similarly po-faced if intense performance, with the benefit of costuming that doesn’t look completely absurd.

Gibson’s worlds are almost suffocating, physically and socially, a strange part of his appeal and an important component of his themes. But they work against a film that fails to engage with its own setting’s implications.

That fumbling aside, the messages are clear enough: in this high tech future, corporations are running the world and people are nothing but rounding errors to the system. Even then, there’s no intelligence or nuance to how it's handled, though that goes for the rest of Johnny Mnemonic too.

Even the 20 page short story explores more of the vast setting and what its brand of high tech consumerism and decay would entail.

The art design does enough to remove the film from the present but fails to create a real sense of unfamiliarity. Johnny Mnemonic’s art direction has plenty of fumbles, as memorable as it is, something done no favors by basic camerawork, clumsy editing, and throwaway music.

There are some strong effects shots and set pieces, even if perhaps only for the sheer pulpiness of it. Yakuza assassin Shinji’s (Denis Akiyama) thumb mounted filament whip looks surprisingly good and has appropriately visceral results.

Less so for the CGI hacking sequences, but when do those ever age well?

Johnny Mnemonic delivers a surprisingly solid final act, as the meandering plot finally finds its footing and the protagonists’ wanderlust for drab urban underworlds finally gives away. A few beats land, perhaps most famously Jones, a cyborg dolphin outfitted by the US Navy for information warfare.

Spending his brief appearance as a prop in a tank, Jones feels better realized than many of the human characters. But a serviceable climax isn’t enough to save the film, especially with its overly abrupt conclusion. 

Despite falling into the classic cyberpunk trap of using Asian cultures as a signifier for a strange “exotic” future, Johnny Mnemonic had a strong push in Japan at release. This mainly shows in the character of Takahashi (Takeshi Kitano) the CEO and grieving father who hires the many assassins after Johnny.

Beyond that big name inclusion, the film was released in Japan first, with an extended, rescored cut, though from what I’ve read it’s hardly a course correction. Even so, it was enough to give the film a respectable Japan opening, offset by a disappointing worldwide gross.

It’s hard to imagine that a more competent execution could save such a shallow script. It’s telling my first thought once the credits rolled was how glad I was Neuromancer never got its long discussed film adaptation. Even so, some of Gibson’s winning mix of fantastic technology and the sadly believable shines through in Johnny Mnemonic. It’s enough to make for an enjoyable film, beyond how laughable it is.