Cheesy and ham-fisted

Rating: 4/10 (22 August 2001)

This film is like a three-hour ad for Mel Gibson. It's pretty good on the technical front: the battles are great, the costumes are neat, and the pictures are stunning (or at least interesting.) But the script is so thoughtless, so blatantly Hollywood-ized, that it's impossible to take any of it seriously. Unfortunately, the actors play it like friggin' Shakespeare. The script is transparent as it divides characters into heroes and villains, then divides them again into superheroes and supervillains. And the "dramatic" moments (such as "They'll never take...our FREEDOM!" or "Every man dies, not every man truly lives") feel phony and jingoistic. Mel Gibson isn't made to play superheroes. His persona is a balance between heroic bravado and self-deprecating charm. In a movie this melodramatic, he feels totally false and out of place.