Big, loud and not too bright

Rating: 6/10 (2 June 2001)

Con Air follows in the tradition of most Bruckheimer films - it's flashy,oversized and contains more explosions per minute than Dresden in WWII. The ilm contains a number of interesting characters - Cusack's Marshall Larkin and a number of the villains (notably Malkovich as a thoroughly engaging psychopath and Buscemi as - well, an even more engaging wackjob) are especially interesting, but most of the talent in the film is wasted because someone upped the budget on explosives but forgot to include summary raises in intelligence.
Yes, the film's worth seeing once or twice. It's visually entertaining (and often almost ludicrously so) and features some well-choreographed action scenes, but can't stand up to repeated viewing. You quickly realize that most of the movie is boorish and many of the characters - mostly the villains, sadly - are hackneyed and cliche.
Cage's leading role is especially disappointing, though the fault lies in the writing rather than his portrayal. The script makes his Army Ranger out as a soulless creation of the military, a man without any emotion - unless you decide to mess with his family, in which case he gets rather angry. He's shown as devoted to friends and something of a crusading hero, but there's barely enough development to give us an inkling of why he's the way he is. If you want to see convincing Army Rangers, go pick up a copy of Saving Private Ryan and check out actual humans in the military. For some reason, "Con Air"'s writers decided to take more of a "Terminator" approach, but at the same time make us like and identify with Cage's role. I'm not buying it.