Way too over the top

Rating: 3/10 (21 September 2006)

The first time I saw this movie I thought to myself "hey, this is pretty exciting." After the first fight scene it quickly dawned on me, however that the action in this movie is all the same and none of it makes any sense (like every John Woo movie). First of all, lets examine the movie's main premise. Taking a face from one person and grafting it on another will not make them look exactly like them: there's their entire facial structure underneath to consider. The movie tries to briefly explain this and their two very different body types but it's very sketchy. Also, apparently medical science has progressed past scarring and major surgery patients can drive themselves home from the hospital the very same day.
Then there's the action. There are like three scenes where bad-John Travolta is in a 20 x 20 room with good-Nicholas Cage and both fail to shoot the other even with automatic weapons, yet John can kill 4 cops while simultaneously driving a high-speed boat. I understand that the good guy has to make it to the end, but the shootouts are so poorly coordinated that it's hard to believe a cross-eyed kid in a wheelchair could have fired as much as our two stars and failed to hit someone, especially when the squibs go off directly behind the person being shot at. The end seals the ridiculous deal: after missing with about 1000 gun shots, good-Cage finally finishes off his foe with the second of 2 harpoon guns that happened to be on a private leisure boat(why?), but only after John exerts about 500lbs of force with his hand on the gun's springs and staves off death for another few seconds. In conclusion, this movie is a bunch of cliché action that is too ludicrous to be entertaining. Don't waste your time with this or any other John Woo movie unless you enjoy seeing people not get shot and plenty of doves flying.