 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Menno’s Mind (aka Power.com) • Year: 1997 • Country: USA • Director: Jon Kroll • Main cast: Billy Campbell, Stephanie Romanov, Corbin Bernsen • Runtime: 95 minutes • Production company: Showtime Networks |
The 90’s, when the computers started to have an massive role in our everyday life. That was the decade when we got films about irreal computer behaviours, crazy software and Virtual Reality performances that if we look at them nowadays we can’t help but laughing. The 70s and 80s were the decades when big computers and alive robots were as well threats as our best friends. But in the 90s the king was evil software and crazy shit on the screen.
As an example of these bunch of end of the century films that were strong in colorful digital/virtual effects and senseless super smart computers, we have tittles like Johnny Mnemonic, Hackers (with a young and awful pre-Tomb Raider Angelina Jolie), The Lawnmower Man and, in a low budget/b-movie ratio, the one we have in our hands right now.
Menno’s Mind (aka Power.com) could have a start point a little bit similar to Johnny Mnemonic, but the plot is far away from that little cyberpunk classic. In a near future world, where politics do as they please only feed by greed, a small group of underground resistance are fighting a virtual information war against the system. The so-called terrorists have reached some computer data that could change the course of the world as we know it. But the leader of the resistance (played by our all time favorite chins, Bruce Campbell) is forced to pass all that information into the head of a lame computer technicial.
A classic 90s cyberpunk plot with no surprises. Everything smells like cheap 90s. The customes, the sets of the offices, the computer software… it all looks outfashioned, old and out of interest. The actors are not very worth eather. Except the bad guy played by Corbin Bernsen (I can’t help it, since I’ve seen the 2 The Dentist movies I’ve always had eyes for that man) or the resistance leader (as mentioned before, played by the ultimate b-movie star Bruce Campbel), the rest of the cast display a performance totally forgettable. Specially mention to the star of the movie, an awful awful Bill Campbell, whose acting is so horrible that sometimes you don’t know if the movie has some drops of comedy to mild it all up or if the guy is really that bad.
Don’t expect neither good direction or editing skills. The movie looks as classic bad b-movie flick with cuts that are more confusing than helping you follow the plot. The music running along the whole film is pointless and annoys more than keeping you attached to the action. And don’t miss how at the end of the movie a computer virus is impersonated by pixel worms eating everything that is on the screen. Sorry for the spoiler, but you still have to see it. Yeah, mr computer virus, all you have to do is to be worms eating a screen and then the job is done. Come on, don’t you love how bad 90s movies can sometimes be?
Entertaining, but not transcendental at all. A movie that you probably will forget 2 days after watching it.
RATE: 4/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117021
