JOHNNY MNEMONIC

 

ONE STAR - Destructive

 

       Few movies are as empty and ugly as “Johnny Mnemonic.” The plot is contrived, the violence is perverse and the misuse of  Jesus Christ is blasphemous.

       The film attempts to explore the future.  In what could have been an intriguing combination, the film looks at current trends in today’s world and imagines where those trends will take us in the coming years.    Imagining the future as a dark web of high tech corporations linked by an internet, the old and tired theme of technological strangulation is once more presented.

       Like so many films before it, “Johnny Mnemonic” uses special effects technology to depict a world in which this same technology is our destroyer.In this instance, the people of the world are being killed by a plague caused by the over stimulation of our nervous system by the voluminous bombardment of our technology.  Though an interesting concept the film does not focus on how this could happen. 

       Leaving behind any attempt to be thought-provoking science fiction, the film focuses instead on the tiresome theme of a greedy and evil corporation which not only has a cure for the disease but kills to keep it from being used. It also raises the question of, are there no spiritual leaders in the future?   Has the fertile ground of spiritual life in America totally disappeared so that evil can flourish?  If so what caused such a demise?  The violence of the corporation’s agents is the major imagery of the film.  Grotesque and gruesome the film relishes the killing of human beings.

       The most repulsive of those images is the use of a monk-like figure who uses Christian language and symbols as he brutally maims and kills.  Desecrating the Biblical and religious words which come from his lips, this figure leaves a blasphemous image in our minds as he crucifies his victims.  This perverted use of Jesus Christ and the reversal of his love for human beings is an obvious affront to all Christians and not only offends us but terminally wounds an already sick film.

       The concept of a courier implanting information in a chip in his brain gives rise to the only redeeming discussion in the film.  In an attempt to avoid detection, Keanu Reeves plays Johnny, an agent who has sacrificed his own identity and childhood memories to carry secret information.  This act carries with it an interesting moral question:  What of our humanity are we sacrificing to coexist with technology?  Are there certain technological advances which will eventually take away our very ability to be human?

       Though Reeves has fleeting moments in which we begin to enter his lonely and private emptiness, the film never really explores this reality.  In an interesting insertion of modern spiritual imagery, the hero of the film, in a most unlikely manner, is a dolphin.  Though the dolphin is in fact an outgrowth of military technology, the dolphin helps Reeves not only beat the corporations and heal the world, but regain his own memory in the process.

       Like so many films which depict the future as a place of violence and animal-like existence, “Johnny Mnemonic” is a brutal film offering little hope.  Appealing to  the emotions of hate and anger, violating sensitive and sacred symbols, the film is destructive.  The future undoubtedly will be impacted by our use of both technology and spirituality.  But “Johnny Mnemonic” gives us no assistance in entering that future with wisdom and hope.

      

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