Great action, terrific soundtrack, and cool sidekicks make up for mundane plot

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2006)

Many reviews on the internet complain about this movie as if it is a standard blockbuster which is generally bad and has no intelligence at all. I Believe the movie deserves much better than that.
First of all, the soundtrack. Hans Zimmer who has done another great job, again. He just is a master of giving mediocre movies an extra shot of blockbuster nonsense to make them watchable and enjoyable. There is hardly a denying that it makes scenes vivid and exstatic, in it's own way.
The action was pretty good too. Coming from a master of action like John Woo, wo would expect otherwise. Who cares about realism if you got Tom Cruise racing through flames on a motorbike? I don't, at least.
And the sidekicks were cool. Ving Rhames, Anthony Hopkins, they were all small but likable parts making the movie feel more comfortable.
I would love to see the 3 and a half-hour, R-rated version Woo intended to release, but was thrown away by the studios because they wanted a standard PG-rated title. A crying shame, if you ask me, because you could certainly smell something of a classic through the silliness that had this movie.
But I still liked it. I liked it because it was edited so energetic, so vibrant, with so much allure and elegance brought to screen, that it is hard for me not to like it, and I forgive them for a lot of his faults and plot holes for that reason. Let's hope Woo will once strike back and make movies of the same class and brilliance of his Chinese works.