{"id":28036,"date":"2018-05-09T02:51:06","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T06:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=28036"},"modified":"2018-05-09T02:51:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T06:51:06","slug":"lawnmower-man-1992-collectors-edition-2-blu-ray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/09\/lawnmower-man-1992-collectors-edition-2-blu-ray\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawnmower Man (1992): Collector\u2019s Edition [2 Blu-Ray]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This was a time where the internet was capable of everything, and virtual reality was the wave of the future, which is what \u201cLawnmower Man\u201d banks on to tell its yarn about the dangers of mind expansion. \u201cLawnmower Man\u201d for a movie allegedly based on a Stephen King novella is really just a pastiche of other Frankenstein tales and tech gone bad stories from the past. It\u2019s infamous, also, for being \u201cbased on\u201d a Stephen King novel in name only (leading to a very notable lawsuit). Instead of a King tale, we get Jeff Fahey turning in to a computer and knocking boots with a very delectable Jenny Wright.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pierce Brosnan plays a work obsessed Dr. Lawrence Angelo, who is working on a program that can advance the intellect of its subjects. While he wants to use it as a means of expanding minds and opening communication, his financers have other plans hoping to engineer it in to a war machine. After his experiment involving a chimpanzee fails, Dr. Angelo takes advantage of local mentally disabled lawnmower man and caretaker Jobe. Jobe is a nice enough guy whose only friend is a young preteen boy named Peter, and the owner of a gas station (Geoffrey Wright) he works for. After tricking Jobe in to getting in to his machine, he begins to reprogram his brain using the VR technology and a brain enhancing serum. When Jobe begins to transform, he begins to corrupt the tools for his own use and for his own grand scheme.<\/p>\n

Director Brett Leonard doesn\u2019t introduce too much original or innovative insight in to the idea of technology expanding our mind, thus much of is muddled pseudo-spiritual babble and clunky Christ allegories. It doesn\u2019t help that the main character\u2019s name is Jobe who is prey to just about everyone in his life. The more he evolves the more he views himself as a potential God, and this is where the movie basically falls apart. From there it\u2019s basically just another revenge story where Jobe wreaks havoc on his enemies through really bad CGI. Even for 1992 the CGI is terrible to the point where it\u2019s kind of laughable. In the VR landscape presented you can excuse it, but once he starts disassembling the atoms of his enemies or invading their minds, it\u2019s distracting. Back in 1992 we didn\u2019t know better, did we?<\/p>\n

You can essentially predict where Jobe\u2019s transformation will go and how his enemies will fare thanks to clunky foreshadowing and it\u2019s all fairly mediocre PG-13 fare. You can lump \u201cLawnmower Man\u201d in as a movie that takes from the pages of superior works like \u201cFrankenstein,\u201d \u201cCarrie,\u201d \u201cAltered States,\u201d \u201cDeadly Friend,\u201d and \u201cVillage of the Damned,\u201d all superior. Brosnan can play a role of this ilk in his sleep, and comes off more like an opportunist even in the very end, while Jeff Fahey plays Jobe less as mentally disabled and more like someone with a social awkwardness. \u201cLawnmower Man\u201d in its own right is an okay film despite being thirty minutes too long. It might even entertain you if you can lower your expectations and appreciate it as one of the many mediocre cyber thrillers from the nineties.<\/p>\n

After spending years in discount bins and clearance sales, Scream Factory grants \u201cLawnmower Man\u201d some TLC with a 2 Disc Blu-Ray Edition. The first disc features the original theatrical cut, as well as an audio commentary with writer\/director Brett Leonard and writer\/producer Gimel Everett. \u201cCyber God: Creating the Lawnmower Man\u201d is a fifty minute exhaustive look in to the making of the film, from grabbing the rights from the short story, to making its own movie. There\u2019s also looks at casting, the then groundbreaking special effects, and how New Line Cinema cut a lot of the film to tighten the pacing.<\/p>\n

There are twenty seven minutes of deleted scenes, and the original Electronic Press Kit, a four minute bit of interviews with Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan. There\u2019s the four minute edited animated sequences, the original theatrical trailer dropping Stephen King\u2019s name, and the original TV Spot. The Second disc features the Director\u2019s Cut of \u201cLawnmower Man\u201d which garners over thirty extra minutes of added footage, not to mention a lot of re-cut sequences to change the pacing. There\u2019s another audio commentary with writer\/director Brett Leonard, and writer\/producer Gimel Everett. There\u2019s an HD slideshow of conceptual art and design sketches, Behind the scenes and production stills, and finally Storyboard comparisons, all of which are HD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was a time where the internet was capable of everything, and virtual reality was the wave of the future, which is what \u201cLawnmower Man\u201d banks on to tell its yarn about the dangers of mind expansion. \u201cLawnmower Man\u201d for a movie allegedly based on a Stephen King novella is really just a pastiche of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[302,349,477,840,906,1087],"class_list":["post-28036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectors-den","category-movie-reviews","tag-drama","tag-fantasy","tag-horror","tag-revenge","tag-science-fiction","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28038,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28036\/revisions\/28038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}