Glossy FX try to compensate for a lack of creativity

Rating: 1/10 (26 July 1999)

I try to remain positive, to see the good in everything, and simply move on. But this film almost had me storming into the box office to demand my money back. There was no interesting dialogue. no characters developed beyond giving them a name and a quirky way of speaking, and the sci-fi element was only explored in it's most shallow form.
WARNING!!! The text below may contain minor spoilers!!!
WARNING!!!
WARNING!!!
My biggest beef with this film was the entire concept of Tuning. The villains had this power to bend reality, to literally make ANYTHING happen, yet every time they used their powers, they did so with a remarkable lack of creativity. They threw fireballs or daggers at one another. I mean, if you had god-like powers over reality, I think you and six of your friends could subdue a human on foot. Turn his legs to stone, have a cage drop on his head, turn the floor to glue, anything. Instead they just kept throwing things with their mind. BORING!
All this wouldn't have been so bad, had there been something plot-wise to compensate. The action dragged on painfully slowly, the characters were all one-line descriptions of people, and the overall concept was full of holes. The movie even ends on an unresolved note.
Basically, this movie tried to be what The Matrix actually was, but failed miserably.