***1/2

Rating: 9/10 (18 March 2017)

You would swear that the beginning of the film is really the end, but it is only the beginning!
With villain Nicolas Cage comatose after shooting agent John Travolta's young son on a merry-go-round, the action really begins when Travolta goes through a face change to look like Cage so that he can infiltrate Cage's group to find out where the terrorist Cage has planted a bomb to go off in Los Angeles.
Cage awakens and kills everyone associated with the surgery before he undergoes the same operation to look like Travolta.
The film unwinds to show the ramifications of the surgery with Cage,as Travolta, going to the latter's wife, a physician, played by Joan Allen who is up to her ears in bewilderment as she senses something is terribly wrong. Cage, as Travolta, dislodges the bomb only to become a hero, but eventually fed up with taking orders from his superior, he kills the latter.
The special effects are marvelous and there is plenty of excitement down to the last moment. A Hollywood ending if ever there were.