IMDB’s description:
A data courier, literally carrying a data package inside his head, must deliver it before he dies from the burden or is killed by the Yakuza.
The year is 2021. There is a global pandemic. Called Covid…err NAS (nerve attenuation syndrome). I think this is a disease from using social media.
Johnny (Keanu Reeves) wakes up with a prostitute. She leaves to get ice. He already has ice. I think he is about to get attacked, because the girl left so quickly. No attack happens though. I wonder why she left in a hurry (more on that later).
Johnnie gets a call from his boss. He needs to pickup some data. In his head. Did he get the upgrade? No. Lied to his boss. He is a bad employee.
Joni goes to an apartment with a bunch of scared guys and he gets loaded up with twice as much data as he is supposed to. 320gb is the total sum. I wonder if the film makers thought in 2021 people could buy solid state storage drives holding that much data for $60. Probably they did. The data is encrypted with three random pictures from the television. The scared guys then try to fax those pictures to their friends in Newark. Faxes are going strong in 2021. Now the Yakuza have arrived. They go on a killing spree.
Johnney also goes on a killing spree. One of the Yakuza on the scene is Shinji (Denis Akiyama). He has a thumbnail laser device. He cuts the fax and takes half of the pictures. Not only is it a fax in 2021, but it might also be the slowest fax that ever existed. Shinji reports back to his boss. His boss is sad because his daughter died from NAS.
Johnni travels to Newark, New Jersey. This is the only part of the movie that shows an accurate depiction of modern 2021 (the city is in ruins). He meets with his boss. Immediately he is double-crossed by his boss. Probably because he lied about the upgrade earlier.
Jane (Dina Meyer) comes to his rescue. She wants to be his body guard. He hires her. I think there is a 100% chance she has NAS, but is also not a Network Attached Storage device (that is the other guy). They both escape the Yakuza. Now fugitives from corporate America which is run exclusively by the Japanese the duo break into a computer store.
Jonny uses an Oculus Qwest to access the internet as it is perceived by people in 1995. Movies in 1995 really got the internet right (Hackers, The Net). The opening credits said starring Dolph Lundgren. He only appears for like 12 minutes in the whole film. The main bad guy boss hires Dolph Lundgren to hunt down and recover the head of our walking hard drive. His character is some weird cyborg murdering priest. The “good guys” go to visit T-Bone (Ice-T). I wonder if contractually his character name always needs a hyphenated letter.
Benny is having issues from data leakage. T-Bone’s gang has a cyborg dolphin that can hack his head to get the data out of it. I forgot to mention the data is killing him because he put twice as much as his puny brain could hold. After a long battle against the Yakuza, Rolph, T-Bone’s gang, and our patience, basically everyone is dead. The girl lived though.
Kenny is given the fax pictures to get the data out of his head by the Japanese boss who has been trying to capture / kill him the whole movie. And now the world has been cured of social media.
I may have skipped some details. Rest assured they are not important. I do remember at one point whatever his name is (the main character’s name is so forgettable, I wish there was a system to remember it. ) says his dream life is living in expensive hotels hiring $10,000-a-night hookers. He was actually living his dream life at the beginning of the movie. Classy guy. This movie did extremely well in Japan and very poorly in the United States.
Thank you for the summary of the film.