War Games was JUST ON Netflix, I swear, but now is not, so I guess I'm live-tweeting Johnny Mnemonic which looks tech-related and also horrible.

Huzzah.

I want to preface this by saying that while I will viciously mock the movie (because...that tends to be what happens in these), NONE of this reflects on Keanu Reeves who I adore.

Oh no, it's starting with a text-crawl.

"Corporations rule."

I mean...yes, accurate so far.

Also, there's a plague.

This...this is hitting too close to home.

Corporations are opposed by LoTeks, a group consisting of hackers, data-pirates, and guerilla-fighters in the info wars.

I take back all my sarcasm, I am now cheering for this to be good, long live the LoTeks.

THE CORPORATIONS ARE FIGHTING THE LOTEKS USING THE YAKUZA, WHAT IS THIS FILM.

We are net yet out of the text-crawl intro, I am so excited, I cannot.

INFORMATION IS SMUGGLED IN BRAIN IMPLANTS.

(Do not tell Elern Morsk, he will get too excited and it will go badly.)

...what does "wet-wired" mean.

Do I actually want to know. Is it as gross as it sounds.

We just got a shot of "Internet - 2021."

This is PRESENT DAY.

As a side note, I always enjoy watching people try to visualize the internet in tech/hacker movies, it's so bizarre.

Keanu is awoken by a BRAIN ALARM CLOCK that flashes the time and date ON THE INSIDE OF HIS EYES.

No. No thank you.

Johnny is in a hotel (?) room with a hot babe and doesn't know where "home" is.

Man of mystery.

I genuinely do not understand the appeal of black satin bedsheets, it honestly sounds like a hazard.

Johnny wants his implant removed and his memories back because apparently the implant...removes memories?

He has to do one last job to get the money. A plot point as old as time, but still surprisingly effective.

It's always one last job.

Those last jobs'll get ya.

Johnny is in Beijing and has encountered terrifying blonde twin-children.*

*The terrifying is implied based on when this movie was made and the children-of-the-corn vibes - they could be perfectly normal blonde twin-children.

Keanu is uploading things to his brain with a plug-in and I hate it a lot.

I will never understand the deeply human mystery of Silicon Valley people seeing this kind of thing and considering it more exciting tech possibilities while I see this and want to crawl out of my own skin in horror.

Can't account for people's gut reactions to tech and privacy stuff, I guess.

...why is Johnny lying about his brain storage capacity? This seems like a bad move.

(His client wants to upload a data set that is about double his storage capacity. That...that just straight-up won't work?)

Bad guys approaching in elevator.

The security protocols are just "select three random scenes from this movie" and...that's it, that's the code to access the data.

I...what?

Also, why would you not check for storage capacity compatibility before hiring this dude, irresponsibility all around.

Keanu, saved from murder by having to go to the bathroom after getting an overload-nosebleed.

He...appears to be doing bathroom tai chi.

That's...one approach, I guess.

One of the science bros decided to stand up from his hiding place to face the people wielding machine guns and a woman decided that tackling machine-gun bros would work out well.

Both were...incorrect.

There's a...laser-cord?

It's like a whippy lightsaber.

I appreciate that the current soundtrack song is called "Virus."

Well-played.

So apparently it's a pharmaceutical company that wants the Keanu brain-data and they sent the yakuza after him.

They want his head for extraction.

Great news, AT&T maintains a communications monopoly in this. Huzzah.

Keanu's manager person (Ralfie) is very weird and shifty, I would very much like to know how anyone spoke to him for more than three seconds without immediately concluding "this man will murder me in my sleep for a stick of gum."

Bodyguards are all women in metallic clothing, apparently.

Who...also have sex with their clients? Hard to say.

DID ICE-T JUST APPEAR IN THIS FEATURE FILM???

I AM SO PLEASED.

Johnny has been accosted, but carries some handy little detonators around with him.

Bald yakuz-adjacent dude was not prepared for this and addresses his poor planning with some random street-kid murder.

He threatened Ice-T, this is a mistake.

Ice-T, why would you SHOW THE RANDOM WEIRD STRANGER where LoTek headquarters is???

What kind of lax security bullshit...

"You set me up, Ralfie."

How did you not expect this from the literal SECOND you met this dude, Johnny?

Ralfie, you dick.

Why are there so many movies where bad guys have exactly one gross, long fingernail.

Why is this a thing.

Apparently wanna-be bodyguard is Jane and she's going to be an actual character in this.

Update: Ralfie got killed by yakuza, his remaining bodyguards are mad at Jane, and Jane is helping Johnny get away in exchange for getting paid.

Also, Newark is gross.

Jane knows Ice-T, apparently, and he is assisting with the escape.

Also, LoTek is full of street children with weapons because why not.

Head yakuza guy's daughter died and also he's maybe hallucinating a woman giving him advice from a television???

Apparently Johnny is having flashbacks (I thought his memories were removed?) because of brain overload.

Also, his hands are getting all weirdly clenched.

Apparently he had to remove all of his childhood memories to clear room for the implants and he gets very testy when asked about it.

(I've said "apparently" too much, it's going to bug me now.)

I know it's for the visual, but there is NO SENSE in using VR to access the internet. It does not make things smoother or easier.

This is like building a keyboard that can only be operated by singing specific show tunes. Sure, you CAN do it, but WHY???

I hate these graphics so very much.

Tech hallucination lady is now popping up to chat with Johnny.

Which is odd, since she's telling yakuza-leader to get him.

Dolph Lundgren appears to be a murder-priest.

I know, the sentence confuses me as well.

Jane is just full-body convulsing now, so things are going great for her.

Keanu chose not to ditch her and is now seeing if a person named Spider can assist both of them.

It is very confusing having both tech viruses and apparently physical viruses.

Spider says that the overload of tech is causing the physical virus, so turns out I'm wrong, it was all tech viruses THE WHOLE TIME.

Ice-T says to avoid the murder-priest.

Seems like solid advice.

Apparently hallicination tech-lady founded PharmaKon and is dead but uploaded her consciousness before dying and now exists as an artificial intelligence with citizenship and board rights and such.

Do not care for.

...I do not care for the murder-priest and you may quote me on that.

Spider is now attempting to assist in removing Johnny's brain-data so he doesn't combust or melt his brain, or whatever happens next.

I do not think this make-shift hospital existing in a hollowed-out bus terminal is up to medical code, but, you know, apocalypse, probably doesn't matter.

Johnny's brain overload is the information on the cure for the plague.

Johnny does not care and is also an ass.

To summarize, Johnny willingly chose to overload his own brain to get money for this job. If he does not get the info out quickly, it will degrade all the data and kill him. If he lets this doctor remove the thing, it saves the data and he lives, but may have side effects.

Knowing that the cure for a disease killing millions could be extracted, he is choosing to keep it in his head, letting it degrade more and risking him dying, in case he can get someone from the pharma company to pay him more money.

Our hero.

Farewell, Spider, we hardly knew ye.

Johnny's been negotiating with a deepfake.

Again, the creepiest part of this movie is that it's not that far-fetched.

Jane is not a very convincing liar, but apparently Keanu is still ridiculously trusting for no reason.

They are looking for a person named Jones now.

There are still thirty minutes left of this movie and this thing is somehow both the simplest plot in the world and also utterly nonsensical.

(Btw, not a single character has been developed and Keanu's entire motivation, based on his latest line, appears to be wanting to be rich and away from giving a shit about any other people.)

Line in question: "I! WANT! ROOM SERVICE!!!"

I do not want Jane feeling sorry for Johnny.

Johnny is a dick. She should deck him.

Again, Ice-T is WEIRDLY trusting of strangers for the leader of a revolutionary guerrilla force.

If these two make out, I swear to god.

I WILL END YOU, MOVIE.

Also, apparently the yakuza leader guy is...based in Newark? Why?

"Heaven" is a giant tower of staticky televisions.

This apparently fights the system somehow.

No, I do not understand how.

Jones is able to get through hard encryption.

Also, Jones is a dolphin.

I...ok. Sure.

I'm not quite at the levels of defeated/confused apathy that I reached while watching Dune, but the levels are currently not great.

Ok, even I am getting annoyed with Johnny insisting on calling the dolphin a fish.

Johnny, your options are "die" or "maybe not die."

This is not a hard decision.

The tech visuals/graphics are...rough.

LoTek is so shockingly bad at physical security for a group of hackers/guerrillas/pirates.

It is embarrassing.

There is so much CGI dolphin happening.

I have genuinely no idea who this angry random woman with the rocket launcher trying to bring down Heaven is, but she just got an arrow through the skull, so.

Words are meaningless, nothing matters.

"You can't shoot me."

"Not in the head."

Alright, solid move on that dialogue.

Odds that the dolphin gets laser-sliced?

(I'm just leaning into the madness, why not.)

Keanu, you are OVER WATER. Just FALL IN TO ESCAPE.

It COULD NOT BE EASIER.

I CAN ASSIST YOU WITH THE FINER POINTS OF CLIFF-JUMPING, I SWEAR, IT'S NOT THAT HARD.

Eh, sure, slicing the yakuza-guy's head off with his own laser wire works too.

Murder-priest is at it again, I see.

Yakuza head guy has decided while dying to share the rest of the data-removal code with Johnny.

That's nice.

So...the psychic dolphin just killed the murder-priest using sound waves?

I...where am I. What is happening.

"JOHNNY, THE DOLPHIN CAN TAKE YOU INTO THE DATA."

what.

AI data lady is Johnny's mom, isn't she.

Oh for god's sake, Jane, chill.

Ice-T just hacked the airwaves to tell people to "get their VCRs ready."

This is...adorable.

WHAT. ARE. THESE. GRAPHICS.

This is like terrible terrible TRON made using only suggestions from Clippy.

Keanu is "hacking his own brain" by...using the access code.

I mean, I suppose he's not a permitted user, so under the CFAA...

(On a side note, I appreciate the dedication it took for Ice-T's character to tattoo the anarchy symbol right in the middle of his forehead.)

Oh my god, DO NOT MAKE OUT, HAVE BETTER TIMING.

PharmaKon's headquarters have spontaneously been set on fire.

Sure.

The last shot of Johnny and Jane holding hands in front of the visual of a building burning is extremely incomplete-feeling without some Pixies singing "Where Is My Mind" over it.

I...I think I understood maybe 70% of that.

Alright, all, it's going on the live-tweet thread, which I will link here in case any of you need reading material over the long weekend. https://twitter.com/Iwillleavenow/status/1310355547384770560?s=20