Johnny Mnemonic

[katikat]

I like the movie more than the short story, as I've mentioned before. At the same time, it's my least favorite Keanu Reeves movie. The story per se sounds intriguing - unfortunately, you can see that the filmmakers blew most of their budget on the few VR scenes, everything else looks namely incredibly cheap. Also, everyone's behavior is really... manic. It's as if the director wanted the actors to be more intense or something. The result is that everybody is overplaying their part, even the veterans like Udo Kier or Ice-T.

Keanu is at his best when he's allowed to do his thing - he isn't the most expressive actor, he mostly shows emotions through body language. You can see the difference between Johnny Mnemonic and Matrix. Or even Johnny Mnemonic and Speed which were filmed around the same time. It really shows when the director is working WITH the actors and when he/she is forcing them to do as he/she says.

Also, I cannot believe that this movie was made around the same time as Speed. Here, Keanu looks so incredibly young and slim, almost malnourished! In Speed, he's so buffed up. Weird.