Rating: Summary: Stephen King? What're you all smoking? Review: I don't understand why people are reviewing this suck movie and talking about the King short story "Lawnmower Man". I would PAY to see a flick that revolved around a naked fat man in nothing but overalls mowing people's lawns by eating the grass Pac-Man style!! but NooOoOoo.... Instead we are subjected to a made-up story about a guy who just HAPPENS to mow lawns for a living! So the fact that they marketed this PoS as "Stephen King's Lawnmower Man" is a crime of intellectual property, except they didn't steal his ideas. They stole his name and his story's name and defaced both with a crappy "Flowers For Algernon" ripoff.
Shame on every one of you who helps propagate this heinous crime against creativity. Shame on everyone who equivalates that "it's still an okay movie". OKAY isn't good enough. If you make a movie called "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein", it should damn well have something to do with the book, instead of just being a study of Robert DeNiro slipping around in amniotic fluids. I hope the karma police catch up to the makers of this film in a big way.
Rating: Summary: Good Dolby 5.1 home theater demo. Review: I found Lawnmower Man to be entertaining and the special effects on side 2 to be worthwhile.The chapter labeled,COMPUTER ANIMATION on side 2 is great for a dolby digital 5.1 channel home theater demo! Too bad they deleted 12 scenes from the original movie.Sound and color are first rate on this DVD disc.Excelent 1:85:1 widescreen high definition transfer.Has animated interactive menus.Based on a Stepen King novel.Overall pretty good stuff on this DVD.
Rating: Summary: Pierce as Dr. Larry Angelo Review: I have this one in my video library. But it is the cut version and I don't like that.If you can tell me if you have the uncut version, I would like to buy it from you. Anyway, I loved this character of Dr. Larry Angelo. I felt that Pierce played him with warmth and vulnerability. He does care about Jobe, even though he is trying to make the perfect human being, and the experiment goes crazy on him. I felt sorry for him when Caroline was killed by the agent from the Shop. It's a great science fiction film. Everybody that likes science fiction should see this one. Again, the character of Dr. Larry Angelo is completely different from Remington Steele. No fancy clothes, no comic antics.
Rating: Summary: Don't buy this great movie on DVD Review: I just purchased this dvd yesterday at the store without reading some of the reviews on Amazon first. I was excited when I saw the "deleted scenes" section on the back of the dvd case because I was lead to believe that these were the scenes deleted from the director's cut version and place on the back side of the disc. I was very disappointed that the deleted scenes were from the original movie (original release). These scenes are essential to the entire telling of the movie. My recommendation: DO NO PURCHASE THIS MOVIE ON DVD! - at least not until a new version with the "deleted scenes" replaced back into the original format, but I won't hold my breath for it to happen. TOO BAD THERE ISN'T A "NO STAR" RATING - THE DVD VERSION DESERVES IT!
Rating: Summary: Visuals? Review: I must admit it, I never watched The Lawnmower Man back in 1992. It wasn't untill I read reviews here that I bought it, interested to see what these 'stunning' visual effects are. Of course, judging on a 10-year-old movie's visual effects isn't easy. But in my opinion, compared to its time visuals in Jurrasic Park, Terminator 2, Total Recall, etc.. it's nothing. Perhaps the problem is that there are TOO many visuals that it must have made them concentrate less in each scene. The movie itself is only TRYING to do something. I felt that the director was trying to make the movie an icon in Science Fiction like '2001 : A Space Odyssey' and 'Blade Runner' but instead through artificial intelligence, through Virtual Reality. The movie revolves around the same idea of FRANKESTIEN, except that the cause of the transformation is VIRTUAL REALITY. The movie even doesn't explain how virtual reality could achieve what the story is revolving around; increasing brain activity and unlocking humans deep potentials. All they do is put the person in Virtual Reality and through lots of images on him with a very fast speed, but is this logical? As for the DVD itself: the video quality is fine. Of course, it's not comparable to Total Recall which was 2 years before it, but it's fairly good since this movie isn't a huge one to deserve much attention. The extras on the other side (it's double sided DVD; weird, the movie took 4.16GB on one side and the extras took 1.8GB on the other side) need no further explaination. Most notably are the deleted scenes. Most of these scenes aren't extended scenes or scenes which explained more about the story. They're actually scenes that would've changed the story 180 degrees. Much like the alternate endings on some DVDs, except that some of these scenes provide alternate story...
Rating: Summary: Visuals? Review: I must admit it, I never watched The Lawnmower Man back in 1992. It wasn't untill I read reviews here that I bought it, interested to see what these 'stunning' visual effects are. Of course, judging on a 10-year-old movie's visual effects isn't easy. But in my opinion, compared to its time visuals in Jurrasic Park, Terminator 2, Total Recall, etc.. it's nothing. Perhaps the problem is that there are TOO many visuals that it must have made them concentrate less in each scene. The movie itself is only TRYING to do something. I felt that the director was trying to make the movie an icon in Science Fiction like '2001 : A Space Odyssey' and 'Blade Runner' but instead through artificial intelligence, through Virtual Reality. The movie revolves around the same idea of FRANKESTIEN, except that the cause of the transformation is VIRTUAL REALITY. The movie even doesn't explain how virtual reality could achieve what the story is revolving around; increasing brain activity and unlocking humans deep potentials. All they do is put the person in Virtual Reality and through lots of images on him with a very fast speed, but is this logical? As for the DVD itself: the video quality is fine. Of course, it's not comparable to Total Recall which was 2 years before it, but it's fairly good since this movie isn't a huge one to deserve much attention. The extras on the other side (it's double sided DVD; weird, the movie took 4.16GB on one side and the extras took 1.8GB on the other side) need no further explaination. Most notably are the deleted scenes. Most of these scenes aren't extended scenes or scenes which explained more about the story. They're actually scenes that would've changed the story 180 degrees. Much like the alternate endings on some DVDs, except that some of these scenes provide alternate story...
Rating: Summary: Movie is great... but leaving out the deleted scenes hurt it Review: I must admit that I was rather let down with this DVD, not due to the movie itself, but what they did with it. The first time I saw this movie was the VHS extended version. I would give this movie itself 5 stars, but the DVD significantly less. And this is due to the fact that all the deleted scenes that were incorporated into the original extended VHS release were removed and only viewable seperate from the movie. The things that give this movie an authentic and intriging story were elements only shown in the deleted scenes. First, the long scene at the opening of the movie of a dimwitted Jobe befriending an escaped lab monkey gives much more explenation of his experiments later (as well as offering originality). Other important scenes removed leave the story dry and unexplained. One scene I found particularily effective in showing Jobe's metamorphis from a slow, butt-of-all-jokes moron to a super-genius crazed from knowledge was one where we see him totally absorbed in computers. He than demonstrates that he has gained enough knowledge to have the ability to cause blisters on his hands. With the extended version, you see a truly uncomfartable change in Jobe throughout the movie which shows much more motivation and explanation to his later acts - greatly endorsing the saying that ignorance is bliss, rather than a poorly developed plot of the DVD version which comes across as mearly another guy-gone-crazy-and-starts-killing-people movie depending on special effects for an audience. If you haven't scene this movie yet, rent the VHS extended version rather then the DVD, as it shows the real, good movie. Even though the DVD has the deleted scenes available, not being able to incorporate them to the actual film takes away from it greatly and leaves the movie drab and unspecial. My only hope is that they will eventually release a Special Edition DVD and restore the director's cut version, restoring all it's glory and ridding of the sh_tty snap case.
Rating: Summary: Movie is great... but leaving out the deleted scenes hurt it Review: I must admit that I was rather let down with this DVD, not due to the movie itself, but what they did with it. The first time I saw this movie was the VHS extended version. I would give this movie itself 5 stars, but the DVD significantly less. And this is due to the fact that all the deleted scenes that were incorporated into the original extended VHS release were removed and only viewable seperate from the movie. The things that give this movie an authentic and intriging story were elements only shown in the deleted scenes. First, the long scene at the opening of the movie of a dimwitted Jobe befriending an escaped lab monkey gives much more explenation of his experiments later (as well as offering originality). Other important scenes removed leave the story dry and unexplained. One scene I found particularily effective in showing Jobe's metamorphis from a slow, butt-of-all-jokes moron to a super-genius crazed from knowledge was one where we see him totally absorbed in computers. He than demonstrates that he has gained enough knowledge to have the ability to cause blisters on his hands. With the extended version, you see a truly uncomfartable change in Jobe throughout the movie which shows much more motivation and explanation to his later acts - greatly endorsing the saying that ignorance is bliss, rather than a poorly developed plot of the DVD version which comes across as mearly another guy-gone-crazy-and-starts-killing-people movie depending on special effects for an audience. If you haven't scene this movie yet, rent the VHS extended version rather then the DVD, as it shows the real, good movie. Even though the DVD has the deleted scenes available, not being able to incorporate them to the actual film takes away from it greatly and leaves the movie drab and unspecial. My only hope is that they will eventually release a Special Edition DVD and restore the director's cut version, restoring all it's glory and ridding of the sh_tty snap case.
Rating: Summary: Fair effort... but no Director's Cut version? Review: I've always considered films based on Steven King novels & short stories to be a hit-and-miss affair. They're either pretty good, or really bad. In the case of 'The Lawnmower Man', however, I found it to be just okay... not bad, but nothing spectacular. I watch it more for it's virtual reality scenes than it's story. Although seeing Jobe (Jeff Fahey) develop from a simple nitwit to an incredibly intelligent, and dangerous, entity with deadly psychokinetic abilities was interesting to watch. And his attempts to enter and control the virtual world make for some of the most memorable CGI special effects moments since 'Tron' and 'Terminator 2'. And with all of the VR scenes, I can see where the Wachowski brothers got one of their many grains of inspiration for 'The Matrix'. My only complaint is that the DVD version isn't the Director's cut, which is available on VHS. It does include the deleted scenes as a special feature, but they're not restored in the movie itself. Bummer! 'Late
Rating: Summary: Fair effort... but no Director's Cut version? Review: I've always considered films based on Steven King novels & short stories to be a hit-and-miss affair. They're either pretty good, or really bad. In the case of 'The Lawnmower Man', however, I found it to be just okay... not bad, but nothing spectacular. I watch it more for it's virtual reality scenes than it's story. Although seeing Jobe (Jeff Fahey) develop from a simple nitwit to an incredibly intelligent, and dangerous, entity with deadly psychokinetic abilities was interesting to watch. And his attempts to enter and control the virtual world make for some of the most memorable CGI special effects moments since 'Tron' and 'Terminator 2'. And with all of the VR scenes, I can see where the Wachowski brothers got one of their many grains of inspiration for 'The Matrix'. My only complaint is that the DVD version isn't the Director's cut, which is available on VHS. It does include the deleted scenes as a special feature, but they're not restored in the movie itself. Bummer! 'Late
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