Lawnmower Man & Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace

Beyond Home Entertainment

R4 DVD

“By the turn of the milennium a technology known as VIRTUAL REALITY will be

in widespread use. It will allow you to enter computer generated artificial

worlds as unlimited as the imagination itself. Its creators foresee

millions of positive uses - while others fear it as a new form of mind

control...”

In 1982 the film Tron from Walt Disney Productions astounded the world with its incredible (for then) use of computer graphics. It was the story of a man who was absorbed (we would now use “digitized”) into a computer system. For most people it was their introduction to the world of computer-created Virtual Reality. In 1992 Lawnmower Man was released, not quite a copy of Tron but borrowing heavily from it and exploring the VR concept in more detail.

Dr Angelo is working on VR interfaces in the secret lab, where he has done some promising work with a chimpanzee. His concept is that VR can be used to train the human brain in new concepts and to improve itself. His employer’s concept is that VR can be used to train soldiers rapidly and have their aggression levels manipulated. In this they have so far been successful.

Dr Angelo also has a setup in his basement at home where he and one of the neighbourhood kids fly through VR worlds just for fun.

The lawnmower man of the title is Jobe, a rather simple-minded but likeable young man who mows the Doctor’s lawn. One day Dr Angelo hooks him up to the VR setup and the results are amazing. Under the VR tuition his mind retrains itself and he learns at an astronomical rate. The previously downtrodden young man is now more self-aware. He cleans himself up and looks more presentable, he beats up the priest who has been abusing him for years, and he discovers the joys of women.

Dr Angelo takes him into the lab where the owner of the company sees him in action. He has blocked experiments on humans before but now he wants the program accelerated. Under the influence of the more powerful lab VR computers Jobe has now developed a sort of God complex and seeks revenge on those who have hurt him in the past.

“The universe is mine. I am God here”

Dr Angelo realizes he has created a monster. He shuts off access to the outer world from the lab computers to trap Jobe inside the system. Then the chimp breaks loose and almost destroys the lab. Jobe finds one open connection and escapes the lab into a wider computer system just in time. The lab is destroyed.

Lawnmower Man 2 picks up some years in the future. The VR world is now a huge network spread across many computer systems – communications, train control systems, everything connects to every other system. Jobe is still inside the system, but his old physical self in now crippled and legless following the destruction of the lab. Dr Angelo has retired into obscurity.

Remember the kid next door? He is now a member of a hacker group whose specialty is breaking into VR using hijacked accounts. He meets Jobe again, who asks him to contact the Doctor. The VR world is under threat and only Dr Angelo ca work out the problem. Jobe is repairing it as best he can but it can’t hold forever. As enticement he has almost finished building a Chronos chip, the chip that will be implanted into soldiers to place them under computer control. If they have the same effect on the soldiers that VR had on Jobe it should allow a race of enhanced, fast-learning soldiers free of the wires and lab support needed at present to enter VR.

Jobe is on a real power trip – in fact he appears to have let his God complex take full control – and with his ability to enter and control any computer system in the world he can punish any attempt at thwarting him. Only a mysterious piece of code codenamed Egypt is holding him back. Dr Angelo knows what it is but isn’t telling. There will be a battle of wits between Jobe and Dr Angelo with the fate if the human world at stake.

It sounds good, but the first film had obvious borrowings from Tron that downgraded it a little. In the second film it was more obvious, with touches of Max Headroom, a BBC show that ran in 1987 and 1988. The Wow! factor was allowed to overcome the plot, with extended but not altogether necessary shots of, for instance, a train crash. The plot is also a little ponderous, but the film was saved by good directing, good acting and its appeal to teenage kids.

The two films have been cleaned up and compiled into this single pack. They may seem a little old-fashioned now, but VR is still in its infancy and has not yet achieved the level shown in the films. There is plenty of life in the Lawnmower Man yet.

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