Johnny Mnemonic (Superbit Collection)

Rating:
Summary: Cyber punk lives on..
Review: This is a good Cyberpunk movie. Its dark and gloomy in the future where there is a sickness that is caused my radiation from all the electronics everywhere. Jonny has a hard drive in his head that he can hold info and this time has the cure to the sickness. He just doesnt know it and the people who developed it want it back...after all, it means mucho dinero. The decayed cities are well done...the compueters everywhere is neat. Good average movie to try is nothing else is avaliable. END

Rating:
Summary: Widescreen/Full Screen Warning
Review: As another review pointed out, this version (ASIN/ISBN#0767802454) offers no Widescreen version of this movie.
The box clearly says "Side A is a Widescreen version and preserves the original 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio. Side B is a Full Frame/Standard version and is re-formatted to fit your TV." One Problem; ASIN/ISBN#0767802454 is a single sided disk.

The other production run of this movie on DVD is ASIN/ISBN#0767802462, and may include a Widescreen version. I can't verify that because it is out of print.

Bad job Tristar home video....no biscuit.

Rating:
Summary: Just doesn't cut it...
Review: If you're not into cyberpunk or video games, I'd recommend avoiding this film. I've read that the short story that this is based on is good. Maybe so but they should have made the film shorter. I will say that I never expected that a dolphin would save the day.

Rating:
Summary: NOT WIDESCREEN!
Review: If your a fan of Johnny Mnemonic or not, beware that the non-superbit version "format" information is incorrect. This DVD version of Johnny Mnemonic is in "FULL SCREEN" format.

The version (non-Superbit, released November 25, 1997) had the full and widescreen view options. I found this "old" version in the "used" DVD section at my location store.

This new version released March 23, 2004(I guess they improved the audio/video transfer quality) only has the full screen option.

Rating:
Summary: The Ghost in the Machine
Review: Taken from William Gibson's short story of the same name, Johnny Mneumonic is perhaps the most underrated film of the 90's. Its definately a view more than once film. The flaws (and there are many) stem mainly from the tinkering of Sony who changed the
initial thrust of the film as well as the soundtrack from the
directors and the screenwriters original concept. Having done my homework on this film -- and having read the original screenplay and listened to the audiotape version of the original, the changes are significant. The glitch in the matrix of Johnny M came about after SPEED became a huge boxoffice success. What was meant to be a small art theater film became
overblown and distorted so that Sony could take advantage of Keanu Reeves, who was paid next to nothing for making this pic.
Sony's greed sank this film, with disastrous editing, post production scene re-shoots, early release, a bloated as campaign.
Still some of the original poetry still exists -- the cyber interface, the melding of machine and human (the ghost in the machine), and some knock out effects -- The short story can be
found in Gibson's Burning Chrome, or you can purchase the screenplay on line used. From the reviews it looks like it may become the cult classic that it deserves to be. And the Japanese version retains much more of the original flavor -- albeit still flawed, its a piece of work!!