This movie is R-Rated. Those under 17 must be accompanied by an adult.

I attended a screening of the new sci-fi thriller "The Lawnmower Man," which deals with the iidea of virtual reality (which is a type of arcade game played interactively with one's mind). Jeff Fahey stars as Jobe Smith, a dumb gardener who spends his days mowing lawns, whereby he is nicknamed, the Lawnmower Man. One of the lawns he mows belongs to the Angelo family. Pierce Brosnan is Dr. Lawrence Angelo, the premier scientist working on various cybertech experiments, aimed at accelerating the knowledge of intelligence through the use of virtual reality.

One day Dr. Angleo introduces Jobe to one of his interactive "games" where the player dons special glasses and becomes a cyberboogie machine, racing through computer-generated, three-dimensional worlds of animation and simulation. Jobe becomes fascinated and later addicted, as Angelo shows Jobe more and more VG games, and in the process, Jobe becomes smarter and smarter, until he is no longer human, but a VR monster, or a fully-digital cyberbeing.

"The LawnMower Man" is directed and co-written by Brett Leonard, adapting the script from one of Stephen King's short stories. The 20-minutes of computer graphics show what some virtual reality worlds might look like. Three separate companies created the special effects (which are stunning) - Angle Studios, XAOS, and Homer and Associates.

Being a science-fiction freak, I enjoyed this movie wholeheartedly. After seeing it, I can't wait until I can experiment with virtual reality! I recommend "The Lawnmower Man" most definitely to all of you sci-fi fans and even to you horror fans. I believe the film attempts to show what part of our future might be like. It will be we kids who, someday, will help pave the way for artificial intelligence and for the science of the virtual reality. n