I really had no idea what this movie was about going into it, which I guess is a good thing. I thought it would have something to do with a man made out of lawnmowers, or a lawnmower made out of a man, or some sort of halfsie. Turns out it’s a science fiction movie and there isn’t much horror involved, sadly. Stephen King apparently wrote a short story entitled “The Lawnmower Man“, which this movie was claiming to be based on, but it was so far from what he wrote that he actually successfully sued to have his name removed from the project.

Jeff Bridges called, and he is sick of you guys raiding his old clothes.

The movie stars Pierce Brosnan from Mrs. Doubtfire fame, as well as Jeff Fahey from Lost fame. Jeff Fahey plays the lawnmower man, which I guess is defined as a guy who mows lawns…with a lawnmower. Oh, he’s also kind of retarded. Not like full blown retarded, but just enough that his only skills relate to pushing a lawnmower. Brosnan is some sort of scientist using virtual reality to make people smarter through the use of virtual reality. Surprisingly, the LAWNMOWER MAN is the subject of the tests! It’s like they knew what this movie was going to be about when they chose the title. Through a combination of virtual reality and magical injections, the lawnmower man gains telepathic abilities and he is hell bent on destruction. Then there are a bunch of scenes involving the lawnmower man wearing a suit straight from Tron where he’s trying to kill people, and Pierce Brosnan has to stop him. Apparently the lawnmower man gets his brain trapped in a computer and can’t get out so Pierce Brosnan blows him up, just like he did in Mrs. Doubtfire.

HOLY SHIT, LOOK AT THIS FUCKING EXTREME FUTURE!!!!!!

I thought maybe this would be similar to the short story Flowers for Algernon, which has a similar premise, except instead of murderous rampage, the newly found intelligent is ostracized by his peers. Instead, this was a movie about the terror that is technology and the power that it clearly has. Since it was made in the early 90’s, the term “virtual reality” existed, but I don’t think anyone actually knew what it meant. So as funny as it is that this movie took place ten years ago and they assumed people would be assimilating with computer networks and have the power the deconstruct all particles in the universe, it’s pretty dated for the most part. If they had somehow explained a little more technically what was going on, it might have held up, but sadly, it doesn’t. Still not god awful, but not necessarily good.

Wolfman Moon Scale