The Lawnmower Man (DVD)

As a Stephen King Fan I was a bit shocked that he allowed his name to be used against this film. The original Stephen King Novella was about a person who came round to peoples houses and instead of using a lawnmower to do the lawn got down on his hands and knees and ate the grass, like a goat! Very bizare story in it's own right but the film has nothing to do with that at all. The film is all about a 'simple minded' guy who with the help of drugs and virtual reality becomes super human and tries to talke over the world. Very predictable but the special effects (at the time of release !) make the film watchable. ...  Read the complete review

The dvd itself is of excellent standard, containing things like directors commentary cast reviews etc but you tell it was an early attempt because you can see by the quality of the contents and movie it just isnt up to todays standards. The disc is dual layered so you have to flip it a few times to access some of the extras. The film itself was based on a short story by Stephen King and contained some remarkable special effects for when the film was made. A brief description of the film, A scientist performs experiments involving intelligence enhancing drugs and virtual reality on a simple-minded gardener. Pierce Brosnan, in his pre-Bond days, ...  Read the complete review

This film is an adaptation of a story by Stephen King, but has nothing to do with the original book (about a man who eats the stuff he mows). The lawnmower man of the title is Jobe, played by Jeff Fahey, who is retarded and earns a crust by doing the gardening. One of his customers is Pierce Brosnan (not a role which really brings out his best acting) who plays a scientist working for a secret govenment agency. When Brosnan's work, which uses virtual reality to train chimpanzees for combat scenarios, hits major problems, he turns his attention to the lawnmower man. Brosnan hopes that he can make Jobe more normal using his virtual reality ...  Read the complete review

You can actually find both versions of the film, the Director's cut is different with the extra scenes that were deleted from the original film making them both very different stories from one idea. I cannot tell you what the book was like and as to Stephen King putting his name to it...I think that it is one of the better Stephen King "movies" some which I would rate higher would be The Shawshank Redemption and The Apt Pupil which both transferred from short story (novella) to screen admirably... Admittedly this film is not exactly full of horror although it has a classic ending...which seemed to lead nicely on to the sequel, if only they'd ...  Read the complete review