The Lawnmower Man - King's Corner Review
Welcome to King's Corner. A recurring series of reviews based on the film and TV adaptations of Stephen King's novels and collections, reviewed and released in order of the original source material publishing date.
Director: Brett Leonard
Starring: Jeff Fahey, Pierce Brosnan, Jenny Wright, Geoffrey Lewis
Written by: Brett Leonard, Gimel Everett
Produced by: Gimel Everett
Cinematography by: Russell Carpenter
Original Score by: Dan Wyman
Synopsis:
A simple man is turned into a genius through the application of computer science.
Thoughts:
The best adaptations of any piece of literary work are the ones in which a filmmaker can take the essence of what makes a story great and put their own stamp on it. The translation of Stephen King's work to screens big and small shows that they are no exception. With 'Gerald's Game' Mike Flanagan was able to externalise a very internally based story, Frank Darabont (in King's words) improved the ending of 'The Mist' and David Cronenberg managed to condense a 428 page book into a movie under 2 hours whilst retaining the emotion behind the tragic fate of Johnny Smith in 'The Dead Zone'. Sometimes filmmakers throw that idea out the window and take the basic premise of a story to make their film like in the case of 'The Mangler'. Then there are some filmmakers who just use the title and create a story so radically different that it leads to legal action. That is the case when it comes to 'The Lawnmower Man'.
The short story was originally published in Cavalier magazine in May 1975 and later added to the short story collection, 'Night Shift' in 1978. With this story King uses the common trope of showing the horror of forces beyond our comprehension at work in our everyday life. King's version of the story is about a man (Harold Parkette) who hires a landscaper to cut his lawn. The man he hires is a peculiar individual. When Harold approaches the man in question naked and on all fours behind the lawnmower eating the grass leading Harold to faint. When he comes to, the lawnmower man tells him he works for the ancient god Pan and that those who don't appreciate his methods will become sacrifices. In trying to call the police, Harold is brutally murdered as an offering. In paying homage to 'The Great God Pan' by Arthur Machen, King creates a story that is sharp and to the point making you wonder how it could be stretched out to feature length when being adapted.
The story's journey to the big screen is a troubled one as it takes the idea of creative licence to the extreme. Shortly after its release in 1978 producers Milton Subotsky and Andrew Donally purchased the rights to 'Night Shift' before selling it on to Dino De Laurentiis. He intended to make a series of anthology films that would start with 'Cat's Eye' but decided to instead produce select stories as stand alone films like 'Maximum Overdrive'. The failings of this film led to him shifting back to anthologies but production company Allied Vision bought the rights to 'The Lawnmower Man' with the intention of making it into a feature length film. They struggled to adapt the seven page story into a workable script with one draft featuring a lawnmower that ran over women to use their bodies as fertiliser.
After seeing his first film, producers Bob Pringle and Steve Lane brought the idea of adapting 'The Lawnmower Man' to Brett Leonard. At the time he was developing his own script called 'Cyber Gods' after his experience with Virtual Reality at the Cyberthon event of 1989. He said he could do it if he could incorporate the idea of Virtual Reality into the script. The producers were reluctant at first but after showing them a 20 minute educational video on it, they were sold on the idea. This would come back to haunt them though as it pushed their radical vision so far away from the source material that Stephen King sued the filmmakers, demanding that they remove his name from the title of the film. It ended with King receiving $2.5 million as a settlement and more money when his name was attached to the title of the home release version of the film.
In short, Leonard's vision of the story was basically 'Flowers For Algernon' set in the world of Virtual Reality. It sees scientist Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) using Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), a man with learning difficulties for his experiments to give him greater intelligence through the use of nootropic drugs and virtual reality computer simulations. Whilst it works at first it gives Jobe superhuman abilities (such as telepathy and telekinesis), it also increases his aggression and drives his obsession into evolving into a digital being, making it all a far cry from King's story about a mythological being in the suburbs.
To understand how truly bonkers 'The Lawnmower Man' is, you don't need to look any further than the opening scene. Rosco, a chimpanzee who is the test subject at Virtual Space Industries, is in the middle of a VR test that looks like something from a Sega Saturn video game to measure his increased intelligence and aggression while going through some phases of experimentation. In the real world he is in what looks like a motion capture suit while being twirled around in a gyroscope in an unintentionally hilarious manner. Eventually he dies after trying to escape in a scene that is shot from his perspective, like a level from the video game 'Doom'. Before the further levels of insanity are added to the film this description should tell you everything you need to know without going any further. If this doesn't appeal to you then it is probably best to switch off the film at this point.
The titular character of the lawnmower man, Jobe Smith, is a very tragic one as he is someone who is taken advantage of from every aspect of his life. The priest who cared for him as a child beats him as a form of penance, the local petrol station attendant mocks him and Dr. Angelo uses him for his experiments without thinking of the repercussions. He has little to no friends in his life and his sole focus is on tuning up his lawnmower. It is a role that should draw so much sympathy but the manner in which Jeff Fahey portrays him is so outlandish that it doesn't work. Whilst it is nowhere near the levels of insulting as the case of Duddits in 'Dreamcatcher', it is still a very misjudged portrayal of the character.
As the scientist with a god complex, Lawrence Angelo, Pierce Brosnan (in a pre Bond role) adds a suitable amount of charm to the part. A Dr. Frankenstein of the digital age, he is uncaring of who he hurts or defies along the way to achieving his goals. It puts a severe strain on his relationship with his wife, making her leave and he is put on a hiatus from his workplace over his obsessive behaviour when it comes to his experiments. It all makes for a fairly one note character but Brosnan's natural charisma is enough to draw you into the most confusing of digital jargon in his dialogue but it isn't enough to hide the overriding inconsistencies in the script.
Therein lies the main problem with 'The Lawnmower Man' as a film. It is a case of two different films being pushed together. Leonard's original story, 'Cyber Gods' is one centred in the digital world while King's short story is one that deals with mythology colliding with everyday America. Leonard's script tries to match the most basic aspects of King's story to his own story (even including the agency known as The Shop which isn't even part of the original story) but the two are so vastly different that there is little to no commonality between them. In incorporating King's story, the drama that unfolds is pure melodrama to the point where it features plot points commonly found in a soap opera. This clashes heavily with the science fiction elements which are played fairly straight in the face of the substandard special effects.
On its own terms the film could be the perfect vehicle for discussing our relationship with technology and the boundaries we should put into place when pursuing it, especially now more than ever. With the advancement in Al it seems like any sort of safeguards against the negative aspects of it aren't being developed quickly enough to protect us from them. Like Jobe we are being shown too much of this new tool too soon without regard for consequence to the point where unless it is properly regulated it will have dire results for us all. Our world of self projection in the digital world grows while interaction and using our own intelligence in the real world shrinks as Al becomes an almost inescapable crutch. Sadly this kind of message gets lost in plot points like Jobe learning to have sex with the local widow and minx extraordinaire, which is incredibly awkward to watch.
The kernels of these ideas though have been enough to allow the film to have a life long after its release. I would be fooling myself though for thinking that philosophical musings over the film are what has given it cult status when it is actually the special effects, for all the wrong reasons. Whilst there was a revolution in the use of CGI in cinema at the time of its release through the likes of 'The Abyss' and 'Terminator 2', what made those films work and not this one was in how sparingly yet effective they are when they are used. Since Virtual Reality is an integral part of the story there's no escaping the need to show it in the film and to be fair as dated as the effects are in this digital world they carry a certain amount of charm. They represent an infancy of these kinds of effects and serve to remind us how far we have come technologically from then until now. Having said that, their use outside of the digital world is less forgiving. There is one scene where Jobe appears before some guards in the form of a giant golden head that reminded me of Patrick Moore's appearances on the TV show 'Gamesmaster'. It is made worse when he turns them into pixelated globules that are embarrassing to watch. It completely pulls you out of the film and dilutes any commentary it is trying to present as the only question on the tip of your tongue is why? Not in a search for deeper meaning but in the sense of why the filmmakers thought it was a good idea to present what was written in the script in this way.
With 'The Lawnmower Man' it is very easy to see why Stephen King wanted his name removed from it (beyond how far it strays from the source material). Although it is sometimes described as being ahead of its time (which I agree with in some respects) but the untethered use of special effects that hadn't caught up to the story make it aesthetically very dated. Outside of that, the pace is uneven, the performances are questionable and the dialogue clunks throughout making for a very disjointed film. With some work and a bit more patience it could have been a great piece of science fiction in its own right but in its current iteration it has no right to use the title of King's story.
Verdict: ⭐️⭐️
-Joseph McElroy
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