A somewhat fun, quite idiotic action film.

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2007)

Better than Woo's sterile sequel, but has the unmistakable stamp of De Palma's illogic. Except, this time it isn't so much illogic as total confusion for the viewer. The plot twists and the conspiracy haze go quite far, and it isn't long after one gives up in trying to understand who is doing what to whom for what reason. The movie isn't boring, I'll give it that; De Palma's films are rarely boring. However, there is also a casting problem: Rhames - of all people - plays a computer expert, a hacker, no less. This is absolutely ridiculous. Then we have the old and nearly fat Jon Voight karate-chopping the young James Bond-type Tom Cruise character. Even more absurd, Voight's wife is Emmanuelle Beart. These two are as convincing a pair as Bob Dole and Britney Spears would be. The action sequences with the helicopter are Woo-esquire: Cruise blows up the chopper and the explosion throws him - unharmed - onto the train, which is going at around 200 km/h. And then a part of the chopper fails to impale him by a mere millimeter. These scenes were truly prophetic because Woo - the king of absurdist action scenes - took over in the sequel. Beart comes complete with a set of fake breasts and an upper lip so pumped up with silicone (or whatever it is they inject there) that her mouth is perpetually pursed to kiss someone.