The Keanu Reeves Project - Johnny Mnemonic

JOHNNY MNEMONIC (1995) - Johnny

I'm just going to get this out of the way on the top because I don't think I've mentioned it yet in this series:

I love bad movies.

I know, this isn't trendy anymore.  It certainly doesn't make me unique and it definitely doesn't make me cool.  But I have loved bad movies for a long, long time.  

My love of bad movies started in my sophomore year of college, when I caught the 1986 movie "Cobra" airing on TV.  As soon as Stallone mumbled out the epic line, "You are a disease, I'm the cure," I was hooked.  How had I never seen this movie before?  And how did Sylvester Stallone continue to work after it was released? 

Have you seen "Cobra?"  It's a revelation.  It might be the best bad movie ever made.

In short, Stallone, as the titular renegade cop "Cobra," is barely able to mumble out his lines as he hunts a gigantic criminal gang responsible for a slew of murders in the city despite the other cops thinking it's just one serial killer and not, you know, hundreds of people.  The writing is terrible, the acting is worse, the plot holes are infinite and at the end of the day, "Cobra" is simply an awesomely terrible movie that I would be happy to watch on an infinite loop until the end of time.  

Mumble mumble mumble mumble

I hosted my very first ever "Bad Movie Marathon"  in my friend's dorm room shortly after my accidental viewing of "Cobra."  A group of about a dozen of my friends watched it along with several other godawful movies, like "Drop Dead Fred," which is apparently a very controversial movie even though there really is no debate - it's terrible.  Come at me.

The first ever Bad Movie Marathon was a gigantic success (if you call a dozen people sitting around a college dorm room making fun of old, bad movies a success) and I went on to host 15 or 20 more bad movie marathons since then.  We've watched some really hilariously bad movies like "Cool as Ice," "Road House," and "Stone Cold" from the latest quarantined marathon a few weeks ago.  

But we've also watched some really terrible movies that have absolutely no entertainment value or redeeming qualities that nearly cost me a handful of friendships like "Spice World," "Birdemic," and "Jack Frost 2."  I certainly know the difference between a "good" bad movie and a movie that has no entertainment value whatsoever, unintentionally comedic or otherwise.

NEVER watch this movie.

Over time, I realized that loving bad movies was a bit of a hobby for a much larger group of people that extended far beyond my friend group.  Podcasts like the incredibly popular "How Did This Get Made?" and "We Hate Movies," (who previously covered Johnny Mnemonic) started to crop up, along with countless others that don't have the name recognition or popularity.  In fact, several Youtube channels discussing and reviewing bad movies have become immensely popular and I've realized that there's a significantly larger community of bad movie lovers exists nationwide.  

I don't get mad when I'm forced to sit through a bad movie, so long as it's entertaining.  Hell, I'm the guy that actively sits through old Lifetime movies in search of unintentional comedic value.  So far during this project, I've certainly sat through some BAD movies but none of which had the comedic value I want in a bad movie.  There's a big difference between just plain bad or boring and awesomely bad.  There was nothing funny about "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" or "Bram Stoker's Dracula."  "Little Buddha," and "My Own Private Idaho" were just really fucking boring.  So far, there really haven't been any "good" bad movies in my journey through Keanu Reeves filmography. 

Which leads me to today's movie: Johnny Mnemonic.

And wow.  I LOVED this movie.  And certainly not because it was good.

I went into this one with almost no knowledge other than that it was supposed to be "bad." And boy did it not disappoint.  

Thankfully, "Johnny Mnemonic" is not just bad but it is hilariously terrible and I'm going to come out of this one with a strong recommendation to bad movie lovers around the world.

What I really loved about "Johnny Mnemonic" is that it starts bad and stays bad throughout.  There were multiple times where I laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was, whether it was something from the storyline or the acting or the constant scenes of what "the internet" had turned into in the year 2021.  

The movie opens up with one of the longest scrolls I can ever remember seeing in any movie.  One of my general rules of thumb is that the longer an opening scroll or intro narration the worse the movie is.  You shouldn't have to give me three minutes of background in order to understand what is happening in your movie.  There are of course exceptions to this rule, "Star Wars" comes to mind immediately but the scroll in Johnny Mnemonic opens the movie and lasts for an eternity.

It goes

On and on....

And on and on...

And on...and on...and on...

We learn that it's the year 2021 and the corporations rule everything and there's a new pandemic affecting society.  I mean, it's completely preposterous...

Okay, but aside from the fact that part was totally accurate, there are other key pieces of information we learn heading into the movie.  For example, the Yakuza are basically the hired thugs of big corporations and data carrying couriers called Mnemonics are trusted to transmit important information that's held in hard drives in their brains.   
Sure.

So, here's a quick synopsis of the plot:

Keanu Reeves plays Johnny (no last name), a mnemonic courier who is hired for one last mission so he can finally earn enough money to restore the childhood memories he has lost over time due to all the other data stored in his head.  He takes a very dangerous mission to deliver 320GB of data stored in his head (despite his maximum capacity of 160GB) to an unknown person in the "Free City" of Newark, New Jersey. The data ends up being the cure to the NAS epidemic and as such, Keanu is chased by the Yakuza, by the original owner of the data, Pharmacom, and by a hired bounty hunter known as the Street Preacher in an absolutely bananas performance of Dolph Lundgren.

Yakuza baddie.  This guy is over-the-top hilariously bad.

And yes, it's funny that he's only carrying 320GB of data but I'll give the movie a pass for that.  Back in 1995, 320GB was probably the biggest number they could think of.  I don't even know if the word "terabyte" existed then.

The bigger question is why in this future society there isn't a more secure way of transmitting "large" amounts of data without a human courier.  I mean, these guys never heard of an FTP?  It seems a bit absurd to think that in this future society the most secure way to transmit data would be through a human carrier, particularly when there's a pandemic as well as the Yakuza killing everyone on behalf of big corporations.  

Meanwhile, a slew of recognizable faces show up throughout to either help or impede our hero:

Hey, here's Henry Rollins as "Spider," a "brain mechanic" who specializes in body modifications.  Spider gets annoyed when he meets Johnny and learns that Johnny doesn't have a last name.  Dude, your name is Spider, you don't have a foot to stand on here.  

CAUSE I'M A LIAR

Hey, here's Dina Meyer as Jane, an aging (?) bodyguard who also suffers from NAS who is hired by Keanu to help him make his delivery.

Hey, here's Udo Kier as Ralphie, Johnny's special agent who gets him missions and also turns on him early in the film.  For those keeping track, this makes the THIRD movie so far that Udo Kier has shown up in.  I had previously referred to him as the weird German guy from the Van Sant movies, but now I know better that he's actually pretty prolific.

"Oh, hello Johnny."

Wait, look over there!  Is that....Ice T as J-Bone?  It sure is!  He's the leader of the rebel force, the Low-Teks, who basically look like they fell off the back of a truck full of extras from "Mad Max."  He's got an anarchy symbol tattoo on his face and much like the rest of the low-teks, lines drawn through the rest of him.  

"Hey Johnny, do you know the benefits of Car Shield?"

And is that....could it be....is that fucking legendary actor of Japanese action movies Takeshi Kitano AKA Beat Takeshi as the head of Pharmacom?  What the fuck are you doing in this movie?

That you're in the wrong movie

There are simply too many absurd things in this movie to describe them all, so how about a quick smattering of some of my favorites?

First and foremost, EVERYONE in this movie is terrible, Keanu Reeves included.  It's almost as if the entire cast had their brains implanted with a "forget how to act" system update.  Even Beat Takeshi, who is a goddamn legend is TERRIBLE in this.  But, it's not entirely their fault as the writing in this is really, really bad.  I know I might not be one to talk given the quality of this blog but this movie has dialogue like "I want you to do something for me."  "Do?" "Say bye."

Beat Takeshi in Takeshi's Castle AKA MXC.  Better than Johnny Mnemonic

There is so much "future speak" gobbledy gook in this movie that I lost track.  Apparently, all of the technology is what caused the NAS epidemic in nearly half the population.  Sounds a bit like the 5G conspiracy theories to me....

One of my favorite scenes is when Johnny and Jane break into a computer store, which is actually called "Crazy Bob's Computer Shop," and Johnny has to "hack" into the internet, which really is a series of tubes.

Here are some of the items he needs in order to do this:

*A Sino Logic 60, 

*A pair of SoGo 7 Data Gloves

*A GPL Stealth Module

*A Thompson Eye Phone (no, not an iPhone, this movie did not predict nearly anything)

Even stupider than this looks

There are multiple scenes of Johnny inside of the Internet, which really just looks like very bad 90's CGI reminiscent of "The Lawnmower Man," including a far too long final sequence where he's battling a computer virus....

Oh, and about NAS...

NAS is this virus going around that's affecting nearly half the population but as far as we can see, NAS really just causes people to have vaguely annoying tremors (called the "black shakes") every once in a while.  It doesn't even seem that debilitating.  

Dolph Lundgren is FUCKING HILARIOUS as the Street Preacher, a hired mercenary to help stop Johnny even though the entire Yakuza is already after him.  Dolph Lundgren utters out a handful of lines like "Come to Jesus," while trying to kill everyone in his path.  

Cyber Jesus

And it would be a shame if I didn't mention the single worst monologue in any movie from this project so far.  You just need to watch this for yourself.  If I ever start acting again, this is what I'm showing up in auditions to perform.  

And lastly, near the end of the movie we find out that all of humanity's hopes rely on...wait for it...a cybernetic dolphin.  I wish I was joking.

Jones - the psychic cybernetic dolphin here to save humanity

This movie is fucking terrible in all of the best ways.  I can't recommend it more.

Just a few quick side notes:

*This was directed by Robert Longo, his first and LAST feature film.  Yes, Johnny Mnemonic appears to have killed this man's career.

*I don't know how much more Udo Kier I can take.  Why does he keep showing up?

*Apparently Keanu Reeves turned down Val Kilmer's role in "Heat" to star in "Johnny Mnemonic."  Whoops.

*It's shocking to me that after starring in this absolute dud of a movie that Keanu Reeves was not only offered but accepted the role of Neo in "The Matrix" only four years later.  Clearly, the quality of these two movies is enormous and it's crazy to think that they were made less than five years apart from one another.  

Box Office Mojo Information: $19 million  on a $40 million budget (inflation adjusted to $39.8 Million).  Yikes.  Somehow still the 86th highest grossing movie of 1995.

Rotten Tomatoes: 13% Critics, 31% Audience - This sounds about right.  I have to imagine those positive audience scores are ironic.

IMDB: 5.7 - this is far too high.

My Movie Rating: This is tough.  From an honest standpoint this gets a 2/10.  It's atrocious.  I mean, I can't express enough how bad this movie is.  However, from a bad movie perspective it gets a full 10/10.  Highly entertaining, would absolutely watch again as a Bad Movie Marathon choice.  

Keanu Rating: 1/10.  Did you watch that monologue I embedded above?  He's just so bad in this, but so is everyone else.  I don't know how much fault is his, the writing is abysmal.  I'm surprised this only killed the director's career.

Up next: The 1995 movie "A Walk in the Clouds."  I don't know what this is but it sounds like a romance movie.  I'm going in with an open mind.