Metacritic reviews

Written by William Gibson, who adapted his own short story, and directed by New York artist Robert Longo in his feature debut, Johnny Mnemonic is inescapably a very cool movie. Running at a fevered pace, with laser and light explosions, it introduces a fantastic yet plausible vision of a computer-dominated age.

For his first shot at feature filmmaking, Longo does an admirable job of keeping the story line rocketing along, though his seeming attempts to out-Blade Runner Ridley Scott in the decaying cityscape department grow wearisome and the occasional wooden drivel that Reeves spouts adds a bit of unintentional humor to the proceedings.

Johnny Mnemonic is one of the great goofy gestures of recent cinema, a movie that doesn't deserve one nanosecond of serious analysis but has a kind of idiotic grandeur that makes you almost forgive it.

A somewhat-smarter-than-average science-fiction flick.

Keanu Reeves plays a "courier" with a lot of top-secret data stashed in his brain; it's clearly interfering with his minimal acting capabilities, causing several moments of unintentional (but welcome) humor.

Offhand, I can’t think of an actor who could use a brain implant more. The trouble isn’t that Reeves talks like a surfer dude; it’s that he tries so hard not to talk like a surfer dude.

Johnny Mnemonic is brash, flashy, and loud, but it lacks a few key ingredients -- namely heart, soul, and intelligence.

Gibson's future-world may be a cold one, but it should never be seen as a dull one; this is a missed opporunity.

Directing his first feature, artist Longo seems dazzled, like a rabbit, by sheer visual overload.

Johnny Mnemonic looks and feels like a shabby imitation of Blade Runner and Total Recall. It is a disaster in every way.