LAWNMOWER MAN 2: BEYOND CYBERSPACE

STARRING: Patrick Bergin, Austin O'Brien, Camille Cooper, Crystal Celeste Grant

1996, 93 Minutes, Directed by Farhad Mann

Description: This Lawnmower Man sequel focuses still on former simpleton Jobe, who's been rescued from the fireball explosions at the first film's end. In a Los Angeles of "the future," he's had both legs amputated, his head is shaved, and he's now played by Matt Frewer. The Virtual Light Institute has Jobe building a chip once designed by disgraced scientist Dr. Trace (Patrick Bergin). — Amazon.com

It's amazing how something that seemed quite fresh and new a mere four years ago would suddenly seem like a bunch of tired clichés today, but that's the case with Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace.

We've all seen this before: the hackers able to hack into anyplace (Hackers, The Net and a host of other movies not even worth mentioning); the Bladerunner-like future Los Angeles, the bad guys dressed like Nazis (the Star Wars movies and more recently Barbwire), the virtual reality sequences (the first Lawnmower Man, Johnny Mnemonic, etc.) and the mean virtual motorcycles (Tron).

In fact leaving this movie one cannot help but speculate on the death on cyberpunk, because that's what this movie is: brain dead.