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11:51 a.m. - 2011-09-13 I've always loved this line and the way Keanu Reeves delivers it in "Johnny Mnemonic," a science fiction movie based on the William Gibson novel of the same name. Watching it again the other day I was surprised when the credits rolled to discover that Gibson was credited with the script. To me "Johnny Mnemonic" had always seemed like a good example of a bad adaptation: the kind of movie that has authors complaining about how Hollywood treated their work while at the same time pocketing the money Hollywood paid them for the right to do just that. JM has some of the characteristics of the quintessential Gibson: high tech, low life; the absolute and unscrupulous power of mega corporations; the ubiquity of the the cyber world to the point where it has become almost indistinguishable from "real life;" surgical enhancements for soldiers and bodyguards; and a strong female warrior who takes things in hand. Dina Meyer does a good job as Jane, but the character as written can't hold a candle to Molly (aka Molly Millions aka Sally Shears), the butt kicking female street Ronan who appears in three of Gibson's works. Perhaps in 1995 it didn't seem wise to have a male protagonist being rescued by a woman, as happens in the short story by Gibson, but the downsizing of Jane with respect to Molly is unfortunate. The Low Teks and the Preacher are also unappealing and sometimes accidentally comical, and the urban jungle through which Johnny and Jane must travel looks like a low budget attempt to emulate "Blade Runner." All in all the movie doesn't work for me, but I still want the club sandwich and I still want the cold Mexican beer.
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