It may not be suitable for all readers. |
The Lawnmower Man is a 1992 science fiction horror film directed by Brett Leonard, written by Leonard and Gimel Everett, and starring Jeff Fahey as Jobe Smith, an intellectually disabled gardener, and Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence "Larry" Angelo, a scientist who decides to experiment on him in an effort to give him greater intelligence. The experiments give Jobe superhuman abilities, but enhance his aggression, turning him into a man obsessed with evolving into a digital being.
This film was adapted from an original screenplay entitled "CyberGod". The title comes from a 1975 short story by Stephen King. Both stories involved a gardener who operates a lawnmower, but the film has little similarity to King's story, which involves a satyr who makes human sacrifices to the Greek god Pan. Originally titled Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man, King successfully sued to have his name removed from the credits. He won further damages when his name was included in the title of the home video release.
A sequel, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, was released in 1996, with Austin O'Brien as the only returning actor from the original film.
plot[]
Dr. Lawrence Angelo works for Virtual Space Industries and runs experiments using psychoactive drugs and virtual reality to enhance cognitive performance, using chimpanzees as test subjects, in an experiment labeled "Project 5". Angelo has benevolent aims, but VSI is funded by "The Shop", a clandestine group hoping to find military applications for Angelo's research. One of the chimpanzees, gifted with new intelligence, warfare training, and increased aggression, escapes. Angelo consequently decides to recruit intellectually disabled gardener Jobe Smith as a test subject, telling the man he will become smarter. Angelo redesigns the intelligence-boosting treatments to remove the "aggression factors" used in the chimpanzee experiments. Jobe's intelligence is enhanced and he develops psychokinesis and telepathy. He continues training at the lab until an accident forces Angelo to abort the experiment.
The project director, Sebastian Timms, keeps tabs on the progress of the experiment and secretly swaps Angelo's new medications with the old Project 5 supply. When Jobe invites his new lover Marnie to the lab to engage in cybersex, he accidentally destroys her mind. Jobe continues the treatments on his own and begins killing the people who mistreated him in the past, as well as the abusive father of his teenage friend Peter. Angelo learns the drugs have been swapped and confronts Jobe, who captures him and declares his plan to reach an ultimate stage of evolution by becoming a being of "pure energy" existing in the VSI computer mainframe, connecting to all computer systems of the world afterward. He promises his "birth" will be signaled by every telephone on the planet ringing simultaneously.
The Shop sends a team to capture Jobe, but with his new abilities he scatters them to pieces. Jobe uses the lab equipment to enter the VSI mainframe and become a digital being, abandoning his physical body. Angelo remotely accesses the VSI computer, encrypting connections to the outside world and trapping Jobe in the mainframe. As Jobe searches for an unencrypted network connection, Angelo sets bombs to destroy the building. Feeling responsible for what happened to Jobe, Angelo enters virtual reality to attempt reasoning with him one last time or die with him. Jobe overpowers Angelo and crucifies his digital body. Peter runs into the building and Jobe realizes he is in danger from the bombs. Still caring for the boy, he allows Angelo to leave the mainframe in order to rescue Peter. Jobe escapes through a maintenance line just before the building is destroyed.
Angelo is later at home with Peter and the boy's mother. The telephone rings, followed by the noise of a second telephone ringing elsewhere, followed by hundreds of telephones ringing all around the world.
cast[]
- Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence Angelo
- Jeff Fahey as Jobe Smith
- Jenny Wright as Marnie Burke
- Geoffrey Lewis as Terry McKeen
- Jeremy Slate as Father Francis McKeen
- Dean Norris as The Director
- Austin O'Brien as Peter Parkette
- Troy Evans as Lieutenant Goodwin
- Rosalee Mayeux as Carla Parkette
- Mark Bringelson as Sebastian Timms
- Ray Lykins as Harold Parkette
- Colleen Coffey as Caroline Angelo
production[]
The plot of Stephen King's 1975 short story "The Lawnmower Man" concerns Harold Parkette, who hires "Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services Inc." to cut his lawn. Parkette later spies on the serviceman, discovering his lawnmower mows the lawn by itself while he crawls after it, naked, eating the grass. The serviceman is actually a satyr who worships the Greek god Pan. When Parkette tries to call the police, the mower and its owner ritually kill him as a sacrifice to Pan.
The film's original script, written by director Brett Leonard and producer Gimel Everett, was written between May and August 1990 under the title The Lawnmower Man, and carried minor elements of King's original story, including the scene where Jobe kills Peter's father with the lawnmower "Big Red", and the aftermath in which the police state that they found some of his remains in the birdbath. The addition of a government agency known as "The Shop" was drawn from separate works of King's, such as Firestarter (1980) and The Tommyknockers (1987).
The film has several elements in common with the 1959 Daniel Keyes novel Flowers for Algernon, which also deals with a mentally disabled man whose intelligence is technologically boosted to genius levels. A similar parallel can be drawn with the Star Trek television series (second pilot) episode of 1966 titled "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
The computer-generated imagery (CGI) was created for the film by Angel Studios. The supervising sound editor was Frank Serafine, who was hired as a result of his sound creation work in the 1982 film Tron. Fuji Creative's Masao Takiyama is also credited as a co-producer.
references[]
- ↑ "The Lawnmower Man (1992)". BBFC.
- ↑ Listed as 104 and 137 minutes respectively on PAL releases due to 4% speedup
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Lawnmower Man (film) at Box Office Mojo
- ↑ The Lawnmower Man at the American Film Institute Catalog