Trying too hard to Gibson the Gibson

Rating: Null/10 (18 May 1999)

This film tries WAY, WAY, too hard to be a William Gibson story. Sure, the SFX kicked butt six-ways-till-Sunday but the story was far too into itself for it's own good. As Fishburn put it in the film: 'Some rules can bend; some rules broken.' If that's so, I think Neo and the gang could've done a bit more stunt work in the film if gravity could be ignored and walking up walls was so easy. Another thing that ticked me off was the constant REPETITIVE slow-motion dolly-shots. All right, so maybe Reeves is faster than any man possible...SHOW IT! Slow motion just makes the audience feel stupid (as they're forced to take in an huge amount of detail, forcing me to nod off in my seat in the middle of the gun fight in the lobby).
Gun play in the film was...uh...alright, I guess but the hand-to-hand akido and 'kung-fu' (I KNOW that wasn't Kung-Fu) was excellent (full support to the stunt coordinator, who's name escapes me for now), so a little less on the Mac10s and a little more Mac-Truck punches, please.
Direction was alright but the dialogue was a snooze. Over all the film was choking to be a good Johnny Mnemonic (Is that at all possible?) with good SFX and plot. It failed in the latter.