The lawnmower man

Movie
German title	The lawnmower man
Original title	The Lawnmower Man
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1992
length	107 minutes
Age rating	FSK 16
Rod
Director	Brett Leonard
script	Brett Leonard, Gimel Everett
production	Gimel Everett
music	Dan Wyman
camera	Russell Carpenter
cut	Alan Baumgarten
occupation
Jeff Fahey : Jobe Smith Pierce Brosnan : Dr. Lawrence Angelo Jenny Wright : Marnie Burke Austin O'Brien : Peter Parkette Geoffrey Lewis : Terry McKeen Jeremy Slate : Father McKeen Dean Norris : the director Troy Evans : Lieutenant Goodwin Doug Hutchison : Security Tech

The Lawnmower Man (original title: The Lawnmower Man ) is an American science fiction film from 1992 with Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan in the lead roles. In 1996 a sequel was made under the title The Lawnmower Man 2 - Beyond Cyberspace , but with other producers and actors. The film opened in German cinemas on July 23, 1992.

The original screenplay was written by Brett Leonard and Gimel Everett under the title Cyber ​​God . The English title of the film The Lawnmower Man refers to the 1970 published short story The Lawnmower Man by Stephen King . The producing film studio New Line Cinema owned the film rights to King's short story at the time and decided to incorporate a few elements into the script. Early versions of the film named King as author and in the title ( Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man ), but the film differed so much from the original story that King complained several times for his name to be removed from both the title and the list of authors.

action

The scientist Dr. Angelo leads experiments to improve cognitive performance for the US government. The perfect soldier is to be created using drugs and artificial reality. An experimental animal, a chimpanzee, managed to escape from the enclosure and kill several people, but the animal was shot while trying to escape. Dr. Angelo wants to give up his work out of frustration and continue his experiments on his own. Angelo offers the mentally retarded gardener's assistant Jobe to teach him. With psychotropic substances and virtual reality it is possible to increase Jobes mental abilities within a very short time. Dr. Angelo returns to his research facility to continue the experiments with Jobe.

Jobe develops telekinetic and telepathic skills and learns incredibly quickly, but Angelo's sponsors do not share his ideas and urge them to continue the experiments with the original parameters, but with catastrophic results: During a session in the changed program, Jobe is almost killed, whereupon Angelo does the experiments breaks off. However, like the primates before him, Jobe becomes aggressive and accidentally erases the consciousness of his lover during the unsupervised cybersex in the experimental setup.

Jobe finally continues the treatment on his own, while Doctor Angelo learns at a conference with the donors that the substances have been switched. In a fit of anger, he explains that the other formula caused such aggression in animals that they bit themselves to pieces. When asked for a personal demonstration of the results, Angelo escapes and upon returning home finds out that Jobe killed the people who mistreated him and his teenage friend. Angelo confronts Jobe, whereupon Jobe ties him up and reports about his plan to load himself into cyberspace and make his way to the laboratory.

The doctor can free himself with the help of Jobe's friend and also makes his way to the laboratory to stop Jobe and destroy the facility. There he confronts Jobe again after he broke into the lab to carry out his plan. Angelo can't stop Jobe, but manages to awaken his humanity, whereupon Jobe lets the doctor go to save Peter when the laboratory is about to explode. Jobe himself manages to load himself into cyberspace at the last minute, despite the doctor's attempts to stop him.

criticism

“Tomorrow's computer technology, yesterday's storytelling technology. What Hollywood only provides in the way of suitable plot components, Brett Leonhard puts it in front of us, chopped up into handy bits. From the sadistic priest to comic elements to the panacea of ​​the mad scientist , the great explosion, he plunders film history. On the other hand, at least the sequences of the computer animation , which are supposed to give an impression of virtual reality, are worth seeing . "

- Fischer Film Almanac 1993

“Modern ' Frankenstein ' version that tries to convey new visual experiences through computer graphics. It fails because of the visual inadequacy as well as the naive and uninspired direction. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

• The film was nominated for the Saturn Award in the categories of Best Science-Fiction Film and Best Special Effects in 1992 , but received no awards.

Others

• The Director's Cut on DVD is 40 minutes longer than the Theatrical Version.
• There is a computer game of the same name by The Sales Curve and THQ for DOS , Game Boy , Sega Mega Drive , Sega Mega-CD and SNES .
• The film has very little to do with the short story, which is why Stephen King even sued against the use of his name. The plot in the short story: Harold Parkette hires a professional lawnmower man to save his neglected garden. The lawnmower man, Harold finds out to his horror, crawls naked behind the self-propelled lawnmower and eats the freshly cut grass. Harold comes up with the fatal idea of ​​calling the police. This story was also marketed as a comic (Bizarre Adventures series).

Web links

• Lawnmower Man in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The lawnmower man in the online film database
• Lawnmower Man atRotten Tomatoes(English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cory Doctorow : Sci-Fi Wars , originally published in Sci-Fi Universe Magazine (June 1999)
2. ↑ The lawnmower man. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 6, 2017 .