Lawnmower Man & Jobe's War/Beyond Cyberspace

There are a number of movies out on the market that deserve to have a sequel made of it, and then there are some that a sequel was a natural move but when it came time to make it the powers that be screwed it up from the get go. This series is a perfect example of that situation, the first movie is left open with a perfect ending for a sequel but the actual movie that was made has very little to do with the first film, other than a vague concept of the original. The first movie also is an example of what a film studio can do to a writers original work and alter it so far that it doesn't resemble the initial concept.
Lawnmower Man - A scientist trying to boost the mental capabilities of chimpanzees starts to experiment on a mentally handicapped man with results that go beyond his expectations and may destroy the world. The best part of this film is the use of the new computer generated effects at the time; to create the virtual reality world that Jobe receives his learning. Some of the new and inventive ways that were developed to kill people in this world were quite unique, the best of them is when Jobe breaks the men down to their molecules and lets them fly apart. The effects are a little plain but for 1992 they were cutting edge.
Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe's War/Beyond Cyberspace - A conniving businessman resurrects Jobe in order for him to create an all-powerful computer chip to rule the world. The scraping of the original story lead in for the sequel hurts this film from the very beginning; the story itself is hurled into the future, far beyond the aging of the characters that are brought forward from the first film, which makes the story difficult to connect with the original.
Not that the first movie was any great piece of work, it did have a playful story that used the old adage of "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The way that the first film ends we're left with a perfect finale that leaves the story wide open for the sequel. But where ever the conflict came from, the second movie got completely away from that idea and struck out on it's own which brought about it's failure. One of the other problems that the second film has is an identity crisis; this movie is listed with two different titles and just doesn't know what it wants to be known as. The first film is enjoyable, the second leaves a bad taste in your mouth, so avoid the sequel under whatever name you find it.