Too run-of-the-mill for its own good

Rating: 5/10 (3 November 2005)

The body-switch genre is pretty lame when it's used as the basis for a comedy, probably because the idea is just not that funny. Attempting to transfer the same premise to a sci-fi action thriller, however, sounds like a good starting point. And I have to admit that this film's concept is quite clever: an FBI agent (John Travolta) goes undercover through a surgical operation in which his own face is replaced with that of a terrorist (Nicolas Cage) whom he recently apprehended. But the killer wakes up from his coma, steals Travolta's original face, and assumes his identity while the real man, who now resembles the killer, rots away in prison.
A willing suspension of disbelief is in order. Once the two men switch places, each looks exactly like the other, with no visible scars. In any case, it seems to me that Nicolas Cage's face probably would not fit on John Travolta's head, though my theory is not likely to be tested anytime soon.
Contrary to what many critics claimed, the actors do little to imitate each other's styles. Only briefly in the film do we get to see Cage as the villain and Travolta as the good guy, even though we are told those represent the "real" characters. Once they make the switch, each actor is in familiar territory, with Travolta more or less reprising his hip gangster role from "Pulp Fiction" and "Get Shorty," and Cage playing another one of his brooding outcast characters. Had the film made Travolta the fugitive and Cage the hoodlum taking over his life, that would have been slightly atypical for these actors.
At least the prison scenes are a little creative, albeit inexplicable. Travolta (with Cage's face) is sent to a facility where convicts are kept under control through the use of electronic tracing, high-powered magnets, and other improbable technology. These scenes would have made more sense in a futuristic sci-fi film, which in fact was what the original script intended. The director John Woo changed the setting to the contemporary world, but left in the bizarre penitentiary without a word of explanation. Regardless of all that, there is little doubt that the plot will find a way for Travolta's character to outsmart this seemingly impenetrable system, because otherwise there'd be no movie. It might have made more sense if they'd established Travolta as some sort of electronics expert; here, the basis for his escape is just arbitrary.
The rest of the film runs along similarly obligatory lines. Travolta must find his way home, get his face back, and prove his innocence, all the while thwarting the plans of the killer who has taken over his life. The final segment of the film is a virtuoso sequence of gunfights, chase scenes, and big explosions. But there's nothing in the story you couldn't predict a thousand miles off. This is typical assembly-line Hollywood, where even an ingenious idea gets treated with one cliché after the other, until finally being warped beyond recognition, kind of like the two characters' faces in this film.