So terrible it's hilarious....

Rating: 1/10 (25 May 2000)

SPOILERS FOLLOW! I like escapism as much as the next guy, but not when it's this mindless and melodramatic. I really don't know where to begin with this film other than mentioning that I should've believed the early reviews I'd seen and waited for word of mouth from my friends rather than rushing right out to see this film opening night. I should also note that I was in a packed 300 seat theater, and the majority of the filmgoers there were in stitches for one reason or another. All of the laughter that was generated was probably unintentional on the part of the filmmakers. I suppose I will start with the plot which we found to be utterly linear and predictable. Anyone looking for a convoluted yarn in the vein of the first movie will be sorely disappointed. It is also full of huge holes, like the fact that Luther claimed to hack into NATO GHOSTCOM in the first film. In this one, he can't even disable a simple alarm in a commercial corporation's security system. Maybe his skills got rusty because he partied too much between films. Since the good guys locate the bad guys in the first half hour, it becomes glaringly obvious that they could be wiped out by SAS, SEALs, Delta Force, etc. about halfway through the film. The crowd at my theater repeatedly burst into laughter at dialogue which was entirely inappropriate for the situation depicted onscreen. None of the characters were very memorable or engaging, except Ving Rhames' part. Dougray Scott was more an annoying wuss than anything else. Maybe he'll be better as Logan in X-Men. Thandie Newton looked cute, but that's about all she contributed. Woo's direction of this film is really tedious. There is an utter lack of tension except for the closing minutes, and even during that part some goofy cuts are made. Most annoying are the repeated slow pans and zooms that are supposed to show us the characters are so cool and dangerous it hurts. This is tough to buy when they're ambling along the street or a dock. Woo's dove fetish also got a lot of laughs during the closing minutes of the film. Tom Cruise also landed many chuckles with his martial arts talents. Yes he looked fairly credible, but an agent in such situations would be more concerned with killing efficiently rather than gracefully. Also note that the chase scenes in the movies are real snoozers, nowhere in the league of say, "Bullitt". I still can't get over the tedium of the final chase scene. In real life, the Triumph bikes used in the film would walk away from the SUVs and sedans in pursuit. My final beef is with the score. Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard also scored "Gladiator", and he was prevented from attending the premiere of that film because he had to work on this film's score. I can tell you right now, one of them was absolutely smashing and functioned brilliantly and it certainly wasn't this one. Zimmer is all over the place here seems to reference all the boring parts of his past works. Lisa Gerrard's stylings added a nice sense of humanity and gravitas to Gladiator but here they combine with the overly melodramatic visuals to descend into the realm of pure cheese. Unless you're really eager to waste $8 and 123 minutes of your life, I'd advise waiting to see this hits your local Blockbuster...