The Lawnmower Man - Playstation 2 with superpowers

In the early nineties, special effects were coming along in leaps and bounds: 'Jurassic Park' and 'Terminator 2' led the way seamlessly incorporating computer effects into live action films.  However, 'The Lawnmower Man' simply chose to show off its computer SFX as computer graphics in its own live action horror film.  It's also worth noting that, although the film is billed as 'Stephen King's' it isn't really much to do with him, only using the title of one of his short stories and about one scene in the entire movie is based on his work (I believe there were rumours that King himself wanted his name removed from the project - which is a little unfair, as it's not that bad really!).

Pierce Brosnan plays Dr. Lawrence Angelo who's merrily experimenting with chimps in order to increase their learning capacity through virtual reality.  When one of his subjects goes crazy and starts killing people, Brosnan loses his job and is forced to take his work home and look for other 'lab rats' to play with.  He therefore choses a local gardener (yes, the titular 'Lawnmower Man' so to speak) 'Jobe Smith' (played by Jeff Fahey) and continues his work.  And, in true 'Frankenstein' fashion, Dr Angelo soon discovers that he's created one hell of a (virtual?) monster.

Back in 1992 when this film was released, all people could talk about were the special effects. 'The Lawnmower Man' was a huge hit, simply because it was basically one of the first films to use such effects to such good use.  Nowadays, anyone who watches it would think that these 'cutting edge' special effects look more like the cut scenes from a cheap Playstation 2 game than something Hollywood would have churned out.  However, it's worth noting that they were pretty state-of-the-art for the time and they don't feel at all out of place here.

I've never read King's original short story, so I can't compare the two, however, I do think that once you take away all the glossy effects, the story if pretty much just a glorified B-movie.  Obviously Pierce Brosnan can carry a franchise and yet he struggles to  make much with the dialogue and his ear ring just looks laughable (plus his major 'character development' appears to be how his haircut changes so radically at the end of the film when compared to the beginning.

Jeff Fahey also does his best playing the 'learning impaired' young man with a haircut even worse than Brosnan's (think Lloyd from 'Dumb and Dumber' meets an early Trey Parker or Owen Wilson cut).  I never did buy his performance when he's trying to be dumb; personally I much preferred him once virtual reality had cranked up his mind and he was doing 'threatening' instead of 'confused.' You also have the kid from 'Last Action Hero' (proving why he never really made it past 1993 with anyone hearing of him) and Dean Norris' ('Hank' from 'Breaking Bad') head, putting on some sort of weird semi-British accent (possibly worth watching the film for this alone!).

The whole thing feels a bit like an extended episode of 'The Outer Limits,' only with a bigger budget.  However, for all its flaws, it's still reasonable fun.  I hadn't watched it in a while and I definitely think it's one of those films where you need to know what you're getting before you sit down.  Don't expect amazing acting, script or special effects, but just view it as a quirky bit of sci-fi.  Besides, the one thing that always stuck with me through the years was the ending.  But I won't spoil that.  I've never watched the sequel and I hear from what I've read online that I'm not missing much!

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that