In 1992, the original Lawnmower Man was way ahead of its time. Loosely based on the Stephen King short story of the same name, the cyberpunk film turned a neurodivergent gardener into a kind of pre-Matrix badass in a virtual world. Starring Jeff Fahey as Jobe and Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence Angelo, The Lawnmower Man was a haunting, bizarre sci-fi horror movie, which is utterly unlike anything else in cinema history. Well, at least that was true until January 12, 1996, when the film’s sequel, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, hit theaters and attempted to utterly reboot the concept with an almost entirely new cast.
Looking back three decades later, it's not so much that Lawnmower Man 2 tarnished the legacy of the original film; it's that on paper, some of the audacious retooling of the concept could have worked. Because one of the greatest strengths of the sequels is that having Matt Frewer play Jobe was, if you squint, an upgrade.
