by: Dr. Boogie

Making a movie that hinges on special effects is a risky proposition, particularly when you're talking about CGI. What seems like the absolute cutting edge of technology when you're making the movie might wind up a year later at the very bottom of the Uncanny Valley. That's basically what happened to The Lawnmower Man.

To really get a feel for the film without seeing it, imagine Forest Gump, only instead of going to Vietnam he got an Oculus Rift and cocaine. Now throw in some 90s era CGI that makes an average Syfy Channel movie look like Avatar. Finally, take the name of a Stephen King story, slap it on your movie, get sued into oblivion because your movie has nothing to do with it, and then release it to the world. Congratulations, you're a big-time Hollywood producer.

Once you get past the overlong, melodramatic first half of the movie, things do start to pick up a little. Jobe, the eponymous mower of lawns, develops psychic powers, along with enough intelligence to realize he doesn't like all the people who were shitting on him when he was dumb. Case in point: this dumb jerk named Jake who called him names and punched him in the face when he started dressing like Garth Brooks.

Jobe shows up outside of Jake's gas station with his custom lawnmower in tow and wearing his super sleek VR suit. Jake has no idea that Jobe just finished burning a priest alive, so he gets a little cocky and starts mouthing off.

When you're running a gas station, it's got to enter your mind that at some point, you're going to die there. It's just that you're usually thinking it'll be during a robbery, or after 30-40 years of working a soul-crushing dead end job. So he never really stops to consider what would happen if the pumps came to life and starting beating his ass.

Given that the hoses are only about six feet long, it seems like he really shouldn't be having this much trouble dealing with them, but Jake doesn't have the wherewithal to run away from the pumps, and instead runs right into the other pump.

Lassoed to his own gas station pumps, Jake foregoes asking how any of this is happening and skips right ahead to begging Jobe not to hurt him.

Jobe grants his request, at least in the physical sense...

"Lawnmower Man's in your head now, Jake."

What does that mean, Jobe? Aren't you the Lawnmower Man? Are you projecting your mowing avatars into people's brains now? Wouldn't it have made more sense to light the guy who runs a gas station on fire?

Anyway, he's a vegetable now.

I feel like this kind of undermines Jobe's power. Like he wants to be the new god of cyberspace, but he just can't let go of the whole lawnmower thing. They don't have lawnmowers in cyberspace, Jobe. It's just porn and racist YouTube comments as far as the eye can see.

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