Lawnmower Man 2 was created in 1996 as a sequel to the VR cult classic Lawnmower Man. However, it was an unmitigated failure both as a sequel and as a film. In fact from the opening sequence on out it manages to last all of 16 seconds before proving its not going to take the subject matter seriously.

The film opens with a digital, rendered eye blinking. The camera zooms into the eye where it enters a plain made of white hexagons, very similar to the cyber-data ports seen at the end of the first film. The camera zooms over a plain of them, then finding an open one, zooms down it into a digital recreation of an airshaft. Flying through a side vent it dives down through the Tron-style rendered landscape until it finds four figures flying through one of the tunnels. This is when it all starts to go pear shaped.

In the first film, all characters in cyberspace used avatars rendered in cyberspace to the capabilities of the landscape they were in - ie the avatars were no more detailed than any other aspect of the landscape since they used the same rendering process. This made perfect sense both technically and from a story point of view. Not so in this film. The four teenagers flying through the cyber tunnels are in their normal physical bodies, fully rendered in the flesh, with quirks and subtle moves we still cannot create in avatars today. This completely breaks the metaphor of course, and is a foreshadowing of idiocy to come.

The landscape is VR, the avatars, ah, never are.

The four soon fly over a digital recreation of a forest, which is very different to the other cyberspace landscapes so far, primarily because it's a helicopter run of a physical forest that has been masked in neon green to make it look 'jazzy'. Then suddenly everything that is rendered blurs together like a watercolour painting - except the avatars, which somehow remain with full cohesion - and the foursome are whisked down a strange vortex into a photorealistic world with utterly accurate physics. A dog looking at a laptop screen in what turns out to be their home, barks frantically as every part of this is replayed flawlessly on a laptop screen in front of him.

One of the kids apparently knowing exactly where this invisible viewport is, stands up and yells into it for the dog - Harvey to 'put the cyber-cycle disk in'. The dog amazingly enough complies, and loads the appropriate program from the CD, loading four motorcycles into the strange simulation - despite it not being their simulation any more, and despite their signals having been co-opted by a foreign computer system running a VR that clearly works on very different principles, the bikes render and work flawlessly. Again, par for the course for this failure of a film.

Immediately as they leap on, two 'enemy' bikes materialise out of nowhere and chase them for no reason whatsoever. One of the kids hits a branch and is knocked off his bike. Immediately a statue of a horse which just happens to be nearby - despite this being the middle of a jungle at this point - goes through an elaborate and needless transformation sequence into an equally realistic avatar of an adult human male, who leers at the teen.

The evil man, whose costume resembles 'Ming the Merciless' more than a little bit, creates a lawnmower in front of him, to tell everyone who he is. THIS is Jobe? Protagonist of Lawnmower Man? He must have gone through several lobotomies of his neural network since we saw him last. He pleads for hyelp from the teen, who transpires to be the same Petey from the last film, a few years older. Apparently cyberspace is dying, although no explanation is given for how that is even possible. Jobe needs help to remain alive, and spins a long stream of useless pseudo-technobabble. He's looking for a doctor that can help him, a person that apparently the Internet cannot find.

'Jobe the Merciless' decked out in a rediculous 'evil-henchman' costume. With a lawnmower. In the jungle.

Peter is then shot by a random enemy in black for no apparent reason. Offline, he collapses as his heart has just stopped - despite his only connection to the VR being audio/visual and haptic hardware. All his friends realise his heart has just stopped instinctively and quickly remove themselves from the full sensory immersion environment, to help him in the physical world. Thankfully they all know CPR.

The scene pans to a military base in the middle of Washington DC. No, not the Pentagon, the Mall. Helicopters buzz round the Washington monument, the center of the base, as soldiers scurry round the base, and a series of generals are presented. A senator stops off of the helicopter and addresses a man in a suit, who welcomes him to the 'Virtual Light Institute'. So many questions abound. Why is an institute living in the open space between the Whitehouse and Lincoln memorial? Why is it named after a project to restore sight to the blind, if that's not what it actually does? What the frack does it have to do with any of the nonsense we have seen so far? Lastly and most importantly, at this point, less than five minutes into the film, do we even care any more?

The film carries on like this for a while, adding meaningless claptrap and pseudo-technobabble. 'Virtual light' is apparently, in the film, a virtual computer network. Thart is to say, a copy of the Internet based entirely in VR. Yup, you heard that right. The hardware and infrastructure necessary to sustain a VR, itself placed entirely within the VR as presumably a nested simulation. What possible use that could have, especially one that has the military and US government so excited, is puzzling in the extreme.

The exposition goes on to proclaim "Virtual reality has evolved from a simulation to an actual place. So, its like a whole new world out there." Yes, well, moving swiftly along…

It gets even odder shortly afterwards. Deep in the bowels of Virtual Light, away from the fanfare, is Jobe. He is no-longer a purely virtual entity. He has a human body again. At the end of the first film, he was a God,. Literally. The first conscious mind uploaded into the net, able to go anywhere, experience anything, control almost anything. Somewhere between the events of that film and this one, he has decided to take on human form again. An imprefect human form, trapped in a wheelchair, only access to the outside world, logging into the computer system via a limited VR interface. Whilst this is true of life for many, why go from near omnipotency, to this, for any reason whatsoever?

A little while later, Peter takes his bike out in the physical world, and easily finds the doctor he was seeking - he's living as a pseudo-native of the woodlands, away from all technology, carrying a spear with a feather on it around with him. Thankfully of course there is a main road leading straight to his cabin in the woods, else he would be harder to locate.

Long story shortened - to remove the pain - the good doctor agrees to help Jobe, and they log on together, Jobe using Virtual Light's equipment, the doctor using Peter's. Jobe shows off the city he is building in cyberspace, that will allow anyone anywhere to log into VR any time they feel like it. Er, yes, right. Why is that a problem? He also shows of the 'Kyron chip' a large computer chip the size of a human hand, and the shape of a pyramid, that 'makes VR possible'. Jobe designed and built it, but needs a hidden nano-code inside it, which apparently the doctor created, and Jobe doesn't know - despite Jobe being the sole architect of the chip. Yes, plot holes abound.

When the doctor refuses, Jobe hijacks a subway train, and uses it to smash Peter's VR interface, which is suddenly located in a disused subway tunnel, as of course that's where you would put all your client computers and sensory interface gear… Anywho, at the last second the good doctor also manages to hack into the subway network, changing the points so the runaway train passes over the top of the disused one they are all in, rather than into it. The train full of passengers misses them completely and smashes into a disused station, striking a fuel storage bin as it runs off the rails, and explodes violently. With the train destroyed, this makes doc a hero, somehow.

However, the violence of the train exploding at a disused station further down the track was enough to bring the whole city subway network crashing down, and everyone has to get out of there as in every tunnel, the roof supports start collapsing, some falling on shopping trolleys piled high with petrol drums, for some bizarre purpose. These promptly explode, adding to the sheer lunacy.

Thankfully the team escape. They climb up a ladder in one of the subway tunnels, and emerge from a sewer manhole cover at the top of the ladder. Yes, this is in the physical world, allegedly. They get out just in time, as fires in the exploding subway tunnels have just about reached the first cars parked down there. Everyone piles onto the street as a jet of flame shoots through the manhole. But they're safe. On the street above the collapsing tunnel, which is unaffected by either that collapse or the resulting firestorm. The tarmac isn't even warm.

Building a City object by object, to control the world.

Back at Virtual Light, the CEO is with Jobe, who is putting the final touches on his virtual city. He is building it, putting 3D models together. This apparently increases its coding. The CEO unveils the master plan - anyone logging into the VR has their mind stripped - despite not having the technology to do that - and the company not only knows everything about them, but can perform advanced searches on the data. One search requested is "all unfaithful democrats making over 300,000 [us dollars] per year".

Apparently the chip is the source of Jobe's power so the intrepid five (plus dog) set out to steal the chip from Virtual Light before Jobe can use it to put VR on every computer on Earth. This will save the world.

Twenty four minutes in, and all the plot set up, everything goes downhill from here.

Pacing? What Pacing?

The group commandeer a federal library, and examine the code of Jobe's VR from outside. Cue pseudo-technobabble. They find a promising doctor working at the firm, and leave the library to go break into a radioshack for some hardware. As you do.

Back with the crazy corporation, they are in trouble, as the government is pulling their license to go online. You need a license? The senator is heading back to Washington to initiate the procedure. Angered, Jobe hijacks his aircraft and uses it like a missile. It smacks into the ground at full power and explodes. Looks like they get to keep connecting to the internet.

Meanwhile in one of the few useful moments of the film, another of the Virtual Light employees is feeling a little nervous about killing a US senator. He logs into his VR workstation and his desktop appears as a rigorously organised 3D map of hypercards. Very snowcrash like, and a potentially useful and realistic interface.

The 3D virtual Desktop is one of the few genuinly realistic sequences

Unfortunately, the film could not let that slide, and as the employee accesses Jobe's file, Jobe's virtual form pulls out of the file and kills him both in the VR, and in the outside world.

Back with the 'Scooby gang' it seems the doctor working for virtual light is one of our doc's old flames, and he successfully distracts her whilst the others wire up her car with the tracking equipment they made. She leads them to the virtual light building, so they now know where it is - apparently the net could not tell them that much. Still now that they know where it is, they can pull the blueprints off the net.

They proceed to use the blueprints to make a 3D model of the building which they use by hacking into the security system and replacing all camera feeds with viewpoints from the virtual model - editing all people and their movements out of the feeds in the process. So the security officers now see a totally empty building on every monitor. That is not suspicious at all.

Peter and the doctor sneak into the laboratories, and steal the chip from its pillar in the middle of an otherwise empty room. Unfortunately they set off the alarms doing so. The doc's old flame saves them from laser death at Jobe's hands, and the three of them make a run for it. Cue fight scenes with guards and the inevitable chute slide.

Unfortunately, Jobe has a second copy of the chip, hidden inside a statue, which his CEO breaks out and connects to the system. The president of the US and company employees, together with several hundred others connect to the new VR.

A virtual copy of the chip is placed on a pedestal by Jobe at the same moment as he activates the real one. Jobe begins to replace every computer on Earth with a copy of himself - he is becoming a god…again.

Jobe decides to remove our friends now, and takes control of a helicopter near the doc's house, to use as another missile. They survive, but their copy of the chip is destroyed along with the house. His own city complete, Jobe sets about destroying the physical world one system at a time - financial markets, water, power, transportation. Planes rain like missiles from the sky, as Jobe acts as a messiah, calling for people to jack in to escape the chaos.

The Scooby gang go after him as he pulls the entire staff of virtual light in with him. Half go into the VR to stop him, the other half remain in the physical building, to smash the physical and virtual chips at the same moment. Ridiculous fight scenes ensure in the VR. The chips are destroyed, Jobe explodes taking the VR city with him, and the others fly out. Ookay…

Offline, Jobe's mind reverts to its previous level of retardation - from the start of the first film, and everyone rejoices. The credits roll up as a happy sunset image plays.

So in short, it makes no sense whatsoever.

References

The Lawnmower Man

Snow crash