root :: movies :: johnny mnemonic (1995)
Status: filmed
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Johnny Mnemonic is a 1995 cyberpunk-based movie, loosely based on a short story of the same name by William Gibson, in which Keanu Reeves plays the title character, a man with a cybernetic implant in his head designed to store information. It was directed by Robert Longo.
On its release, the movie was scorned by film critics, who mocked what they saw as mediocre acting, hardly-believable characters (including a drug-addicted dolphin), and lack of substance/coherence. At one point in the film Johnny loses his temper and launches into an infamously over-the-top tirade ("I want room service!"), earning him more derision than sympathy.
The film is more notable for the presence of Takeshi Kitano, whose role in the Japanese version of the film was greatly expanded. (1995, 103 minutes, Color, English/Japanese.)
The film portrays Gibson's standard dystopian view of the future with the world dominated by large corporations and with strong East Asian influences.
The movie was filmed on location in Canada, with Toronto and Montreal filling in for Newark, New Jersey and Beijing. A number of local monuments feature prominently, such as Toronto's Union Station.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Johnny is a data trafficker who has an implant where people can securely store data. Johnny uses this implant to act as a courier between contracting parties. On one delivery run, he begins to find that his package not only exceeds the amount of storage in the implant, causing his death if the data isn't removed, but also contains information far more important and valuable than he had ever imagined. He has to get the data removed and avoid being killed by assassins sent after him by the company who owns the data.
The story in the movie significantly deviates from the short story in parts, most notably turning Johnny, not girlfriend Molly, into the main action character. (In fact the girlfriend character was transformed in the movie from Molly into "Jane", as the film rights to Molly were owned by a company not affiliated with the producers of this film.) The movie was nevertheless a modest success, and likely brought Reeves to the attention of the Wachowski brothers, landing him with the starring role of Neo in The Matrix, a movie largely inspired by Gibson's work. See also similarities with Neuromancer in The Matrix.