The Lawnmower Man

Plot synopsis:
Dr. Lawrence Angelo works for Virtual Space Industries, running experiments in increasing the intelligence of chimpanzees using drugs and virtual reality. One of the chimps escapes using the warfare tactics he was being trained for. Dr. Angelo is generally a pacifist, who would rather explore the intelligence-enhancing potential of his research without applying it for military purposes. His wife Caroline is unhappy with the way he is ignoring her to focus on this project.
Jobe Smith, a local greenskeeper with an intellectual disability, lives in the garden shed owned by the local priest, Father Francis McKeen. McKeen's brother, Terry, is a local landscape gardener and employs Jobe to help him with odd jobs. Father McKeen punishes the challenged Jobe with a belt whenever he fails to complete his chores.
Dr. Angelo realizes he needs a human subject to work with, and he spots Jobe mowing his lawn. Peter Parkette, Dr. Angelo's young neighbor, is friends with Jobe. Dr. Angelo invites both of them over to play some virtual reality games. Learning more about Jobe, Angelo persuades him to participate in his experiments, letting him know it will make him smarter. Jobe agrees and begins the program. Dr. Angelo makes it a point to redesign all the intelligence-boosting treatments without the "aggression factors" used in the chimpanzee experiments.
Jobe soon becomes smarter, for example, learning Latin in only two hours. Meanwhile, Jobe also begins a sexual relationship with a young rich widow, Marnie. However, Jobe begins to display telepathic abilities and has hallucinations. He continues training at the lab, until an accident makes Dr. Angelo shut the program down. The project director, Sebastian Timms, employed by a mysterious agency known as The Shop, keeps tabs on the progress of the experiment, and discreetly swaps Dr. Angelo's new medications with the old Project 5 supply (reintroducing the "aggression factors" into the treatment).
Jobe develops telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers and takes Marnie to the lab to make love to her while in virtual reality. Something goes wrong in the simulation when Jobe's virtual avatar becomes violent, attacking her mind directly; Marnie is driven insane, laughing endlessly at nothing.
Jobe's powers continue to grow, but the treatments are also affecting his mental stability, and he decides to exact revenge on those who abused him when he was "dumb": Father McKeen is engulfed in flames, a bully named Jake is put into a catatonic state by a mental "lawnmower man" continually mowing his brain, and a lawnmower invention of Jobe's runs down Harold, Peter's abusive father. Jobe uses his telepathic abilities to make the investigating police attribute it all to "bizarre accidents" in front of Dr. Angelo.
Jobe believes his final stage of evolution is to become "pure energy" in the VSI computer mainframe, and from there reach into all the systems of the world. He promises his "birth" will be signaled by every telephone on the planet ringing simultaneously. The Shop sends a team to capture Jobe, but they are ineffective against his abilities and he scatters their molecules. Jobe uses the lab equipment to enter the mainframe computer, abandoning his body to become a wholly virtual being, leaving his body behind like a husk.
Dr. Angelo remotely infects the VSI computer, encrypting all of the links to the outside world, trapping Jobe in the mainframe. As Jobe searches for an unencrypted network connection, Dr. Angelo primes bombs to destroy the building. Feeling responsible for what has happened to Jobe, Angelo then joins him in virtual reality to try to reason with him. Jobe overpowers and crucifies him, then continues to search for a network connection. Peter runs into the building; Jobe still cares for him and allows Dr. Angelo to go free in order to rescue Peter. Jobe forces a computer-connected lock to open, allowing Peter and Dr. Angelo to escape. Jobe escapes through a back door before the building is destroyed in multiple explosions.
Back at home with Peter, Dr. Angelo and Peter's mother Carla (who has become a romantic interest) are about to leave when their telephone rings, followed by the noise of a second, and then hundreds of telephones ring, all around the globe.

Tags: cruelty, murder, paranormal, cult, violence, alternate reality, flashback, insanity, psychedelic, tragedy, revenge, sci-fi

Review:
Stories about a simple person getting turned into something more seem pretty common in movies, but none are like "The Lawnmower Man".
Portraying scientist Pierce Brosnan turning retarded Jeff Fahey into a super-genius (with unintended consequences), this is one movie destined to blow your mind.
When I watch Tron I don't think that the graphics are dated, I just remember that the movie was made in 1982 and effects and computer animation weren't the same back then as they are today.
You get to see a great example of "power corrupting" a human being.I've seen this film a lot, from 15 to 25 years old, and the last scene of the movie never fails to give me shivers.But please, please, please don't watch the sequel.
So yes, The Lawnmower Man no longer looks cutting-edge but neither does it look terrible, its effects work within themselves and are only occasionally atrocious, such as the burning priest.As most people already know, the story is about a simpleton who is turned into a genius via virtual reality technology.
Even with the plethora of problems, The Lawnmower Man is worth watching for fans of "so bad it's good" films (even though this isn't exactly so bad that it's good), just to witness the atrocious special effects (almost all CGI) and the bizarre concatenation of elements that it's almost impossible to imagine anyone thought would be a good idea if they weren't intentionally shooting for a comedy or an absurdist genre film.
Of course, things do not go exactly as planned with the tests on Jobe, either, especially once The Shop gets wind of what Dr. Angelo is doing.The Lawnmower Man grew out of a Stephen King short story that most famously appeared in his Night Shift collection.
I actually like most King-oriented films, but I find the suit amusing, too.What makes The Lawnmower Man such a trainwreck?
One Version Good, One Version Bad. When many people (who have seen it) hear of Lawnmower Man, they immediatelycringe and think of a poor rendition of a movie and wonder why the actors who were in it...
Because no matter how you look at it, The Lawnmower Man was a film with a terrible script, based on some terrible ideas, trying to trade off the name of an author who was at the peak of his commercial success.
Said author, one tall American by the name of Stephen King, liked the idea of his short story being used to bolster the bleak commercial prospects of this film so much that he took the producers to court and demanded they stopped using his name.
Brett Leonard's The Lawnmower Man has not an original or well thought out idea anywhere in its little head.Part of the problem stems from the basic story of the film.
Brosnan's performance as the man wondering where he went wrong is the only real anchor this film has.Much has been made of the virtual reality environments around which some of the plot is based.
THE LAWNMOWER MAN, a virtual reality-based sci-fi thriller supposedly based on a short story by Stephen King (although in reality it has nothing to do with it) is the perfect definition of a dated film.
It has its good points, and the best of those is the consistently underrated Jeff Fahey, a man who's spent his life enhancing B-movies with many a decent performance.The narrative is about a simpleton who gradually transforms into a genius, and the journey there is fairly interesting, enlivened by a quirky turn from Jenny Wright as a love interest.
Jeff Fahey is pretty interesting as "the lawnmower man." Being someone who is fascinated with special-effects, I watched the film probably normally would have considering some of the bias (see below).What I objected to - and nobody else ever seems to - is another cheap shot at a cleric, where I see in almost every Stephen King story, whether he authorizes it or not.
I just think Stephen King's actual story could've been a better movie than Brett Leonard's version.
After his experiments failed with a chimp he decided to tweak things a bit and try again on Jobe (Jeff Fahey), a mentally challenged lawnmower man.
Consider that in 1991 we had T2 which was revolutionary as far as on screen effects, and in '93 (a year after Lawnmower Man) we were treated to Jurassic Park, another titan in the CGI department.The movie ended with an opening for a part 2 (which was done though I never saw it) but why?
Perhaps I'm biased since I'm very interested in the evolution of special and digital effects throughout film history, but watching the often surreal CGI abstractions left me amazed considering this stuff came out twenty-five years ago.
Towards the end of the film I thought the movie spun out of control to put it simply, and there was a romance that was little rushed,, but to me those are very minor complaints compared to what else the film DOES give us, in terms of groundbreaking ideas, pioneering and truly mind-warping visual effects, a novel yet traditional story-line, some heartfelt performances, and entertaining scenes.
The first half of this science fiction horror tale (based on a short story from Stephen King's Night Shift Collection) is thought provoking and gripping, but the latter half decides to dive deep into an eccentric and confusing mix of special effects and pseudo-scientific mayhem.
Dr. Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) is a brilliant but obsessed computer science specialist that is engaged in secret government experiments to create super-intelligent soldiers out of chimpanzees by using virtual reality simulations to stimulate the brain.
The only time this fails is when Jobe gets revenge on the government goons and the characters that antagonized him by merging his powers with the world of virtual reality resulting in some far out murder sequences that just don't seem to make any sense.
It actually fails so badly in most respects, on multiple layers, in a way that it doesn't even capture that feeling of "so bad, so good", like some carpenter's movie (or even a lot worse movies).Brosnan is atrocious, like he's been in many other movies, the plot is totally lost halfway through the movie, acting from the guys in suits is so beyond insulting, it can't even be amusing, the evolution of the story and the ending feels like a bad B movie.I'd say the only redeeming quality is the imaginative VR CGI, which today obviously looks like crap, but for the time it was a fair potpourri of pop tech ideas.
Soon, Jobe gains brain power which leads to conflicts.Jeff Fahey's slow look is probably the most memorable thing about this movie.
Sure enough, there are some brilliant virtual reality scenes, and it does explain things about it, but the explanation moves from a simple advertisement to the extent of the possible abuse of the technology.Lawnmowerman is not a science-fiction movie, it is a horror movie.
Title: The Lawnmower Man Director: Brett Leonard Cast: Jeff Fahey, Pierce Brosnan, Austin O Brien Tagline: God made him simple.
A mentally challenged gardener named Jobe (and affectionately called "the Lawnmower Man" by the townsfolk) is chosen by the local genius scientist Dr. Angelo, to participate in a series of experiments involving cyberspace and virtual reality that could help make him smarter and snap out of his mental disability.
And that my friends is not good in a horror movie.Anyhows, what holds this film together is two things: the acting from Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey and the story.
King always does a good job of fleshing out characters and you can see that here.Its a halfway enjoyable film but unfortunately its full enjoyment is held back because of its limited, dated and poorly executed special effects.
The Lawnmower Man (1992) ** (out of 4) Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) is a scientist who is experimenting with virtual reality.
Of course, being from Stephen King, Jobe eventually begins to suffer a breakdown and soon chaos breaks out.When I first watched this movie in theaters I honestly didn't care too much about it.
The direction of the effects were at least good and these images at least keep you somewhat entertained.The problem with the film is that you're basically watching a rather cheap horror movie that doesn't have too much to say.
Fahey actually does a good job with the role of the slow Jobe and he's believable in this aspect of the character as well as when he becomes smarter.THE LAWNMOWER MAN isn't an awful movie but it's a rather boring mess that just never really comes together..
When he tries his new technology on mentally challenged gardener Jobe Smith (Fahey), it elevates him to a higher intelligence and it's not long before Jobe acquires scary new powersOriginally meant to be, and titled as, Stephen King's Lawnmower Man, the film eventually, after a King lawsuit, ended up bearing very little resemblance to the author's short story.
There's a couple of small ligaments that link the two, but in the main (not Maine) this Lawnmower Man is its own entity and an obvious attempt to cash in on the then virtual reality zeitgeist.Lawnmower Man has a cult fan base, of that there is no doubt, where much like Tron from 10 years earlier, the effects work and the capturing of something very much being "in" with the youth of the time, has proved perpetually appealing to nostalgists.
The Lawnmower Man, an interesting movie in the context of its time, and certainly fun enough for those who were there cloaked in a visually inspired warm glow, but it has not been a must see film for anyone else since 1995.
what the hell does this film have to do with the short story by Stephen king i read the story and watched the movie one has absolutely nothing to do with the story.
Dr. Angelo's character is given a little berth to pass off as a realistic character; this invites us to identify with him as a "voice of reason" in a cartoonish sci-fi universe.Of course, the whole thing uses the misunderstood tech trope of the year, "virtual reality", boosted by mind-altering drugs, as a hook for yet-another story about man's effort to cosmically transcend.
It's pretty dumb, and save for the solid performance by Pierce Brosnan, there wouldn't be anything to save this movie from going to the direct-to-video bin.Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) is on the verge of a fundamental breakthrough: he is on the verge of being able to use virtual reality to increase a person's intelligence.
He decides to use virtual reality to increase the intelligence of a mentally retarded lawnmower man named Job (Jeff Fahey).
The experiments work better than Angelo could have hoped, but when his funders find out about it, they want Job to be used for the military testing, and they'll do anything to convince Angelo to do it.There isn't a single original moment in this film, and apart from Brosnan, little else to recommend it.
Movies like WARGAMES and TRON get bashed, because of their dated looks and technology-related plots that are clearly not possible today, only because the technology of today renders them ridiculous.ROLLERBALL also suffers this fate, ironically, because its supposed to be a brutal future-sport based on Roller Derby, which by now has all but disappeared from the sporting world.Taking all of this into account, I still love THE LAWNMOWER MAN.
Jeff Fahey plays Job, a slow, mentally and physically abused man who is laughed at and mocked by his entire community, save Jeffrey Lewis playing Terry, his partner and friend throughout the film.Pierce Brosnan plays the scientist Lawrence Angelo, a man who is obsessed with exploring the higher dimensions of the functioning brain by using chimpanzees as guinea pigs.
Enjoy the score, the theme, the plot, and even the silly CGI that doesn't hold up to today's standards, but looked pretty good for the crazy movie they were making back in the day.
There's a lot of great cheesy movies from the 80's and there's certainly a lot from the 90's.If they ever make a special edition Blu-ray, they should interview Jeff Fahey (no need to interview the rest of the cast, there isn't that much to say about their characters), the production designer and the director who was in charge of the computer graphics.As a sci-fi thriller, it is not as intelligent as Twelve Monkeys, but enjoyable if you like cheesy 90's movies..
The Lawnmower ManThe best thing about lawn maintenance is that you can make some extra cash selling grass clippings to stupid teenagers.However, the groundskeeper in this thriller is too thickheaded to figure that out.One day, while mowing the lawn, dimwitted Jobe (Jeff Fahey) is invited in to his client's, Dr. Angelo (Pierce Brosnan), home to play virtual reality games.During his time with Jobe, Angelo determines that he would make an excellent lab rat for a new drug that promises to stimulate brain function.With his acumen amplified to the point of telekinesis, Jobe uses his newly minted mind powers to settle scores with those who exploited him when he was obtuse.Bearing little resemble to the Stephen King short story on which it is based, instead, The Lawnmower Man uses name recognition to capitalize off the 1990s virtual reality craze.
As an example take "IT" - a much stranger movie than Leonards "LawnmowerMan", but I love it.The other part of the blame for "The LawnmowerMan" is that there are two versions : One is the early "2-dimensional" (here I mean character-story) edition only 107 minutes long, but Leonards choice is of course the brilliant 141 minutes edition which unfortunately only can be seen in widescreen on DVD if You combine two DVD-players (and two DVD's) so you shift between the movie and the deleted scenes) OR You could do something else which probably would violate the copyrights ...Therefore IMDb should have 2 entries for "The LawnmowerMan" and then, my dear haters of this movie, You would see that most of the "lovers" of this movie would vote VERY low too, when voting on the mutilated edition of "The LawnmowerMan" running 107 minutes .And as written elsewhere "There are a lot of people (especially in the movie industry) who doesn't like Brett Leonard ..." and hopefully Brett will shake of this BLIND ENVY (2 nominations at Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA !!!
It would appear the story was written around the idea to showcase the CGI of the film.As for the CGI, some were "interesting" for their time - but more interesting in terms of being a demo reel for the CGI of the day than apropos to good movie making.
I was tempted to call them "first generation theatrical CGI" but I couldn't forget movies like Tron, who used even more primitive graphics to good effect years earlier.
Turns out that the film has generally low ratings anyway: The Internet Movie Database has the film clocked in at exactly 5.0 (out of a possible 10) stars as of January 14th, 2004, and Rotten Tomatoes has a Rotten reading of the film with 50% good (and bad) reviews.Jeff Fahey (who?) plays Jobe, a mentally retarded lawn mower (not the machine, I mean a real lawn mower man) who gets picked on by friends, rents a small room at a church run by a crazy priest (why are the priests always crazy?), and allows himself to be beaten by the crazy old man.
But if you watch it today, then you don't get half as much enjoyment out of it as you would have back in 1992.For a movie back in 1992, then the special effects and CGI weren't even all that impressive, not when you take into consideration other movies from the same period of time.All in all, then "The Lawnmower Man" is a thing of the past, and it should remain there wrapped in the fond memories that one might have had back then..
Brilliant scientist Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) uses simple-minded gardener Jobe (Jeff Fahey) as a guinea pig in his virtual reality experiments, using mind altering drugs and immersive computer technology to enhance his subject's intelligence and awaken parts of the brain that have lain dormant for centuries.
Since I deem anything King-related to be worth a watch, no matter how slight the connection, I had a reasonably good time with the film, although there no denying that its once cutting-edge visuals now look horribly dated, and render the film less effective overall (it's hard to be impressed by graphics that most of today's kids could do better on their laptop).Watch to see a cyberchimp firing a pistol, Fahey transforming from a simpleton to super buff stud-muffin, an abusive father being chased by a big red lawnmower, Jenny Wright as a rich floozy, and a pre-Bond Brosnan with floppy hair pulling Semtex out of thin air.
Indecent...yes it's a name to special effects from bad graphic computer of this movie,could be a good sci-fi,but a lack of fertile imagination blow up the story which is very auspicious in many original scenes,if had a minimum brain behind of movie production,unfortunately they did not....Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan is quite convincing in their roles,but the picture works as pastime and to burn a bad Priest,it's was a magnificent idea...beware l said bad Priest only!!
"The Lawnmower Man" looks better than films with ten times the budget.
He didn't get the chance to prove or perfect it to work on humans, but he believes he can turn his simple minded gardener, aka "the lawnmower man" of the title, Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey) into a more intelligent being.
THE LAWNMOWER MAN started life as a Stephen King short story.
Other than the problems I see, this film overall is not bad for what it's worth, so if you like semi low budget sci-fi flicks, then this is a good watch movie..