Special Effects Come Alive, Actors Become the Living Dead!

Rating: Null/10 (3 June 2001)

The old televsion show used the skills of actors to fool politicians and those in power. This movie uses political power (in the form of production costs and special effects) to destroy the possibility of acting. This film is a grisly struggle between the special effects--now come alive--and the actors--suddenly cadavers. Each scene appears not only as fake, but so overly produced as to destroy the idea that there is anything but this fake world. Tom Cruise is the John Wayne of our day--using a few identifiable gestures and looks in every film to emact a muted and devestated masculinity. Ms. Newton is beyond beautiful into cosmic. Everyone else in this film is simply metal grinding against metal. And poor old Anthony Hopkins, one of the great actors to emerge in the last three decades, shows up in this trash to grab the cash (or was it a favor to a friend or perhaps he just can't say "No"?). This is a film where the "coming attractions" are so far superior to the film that Woo might simply give up narrative altogether and develop and ballet or performance art of violence--which is ultimately where his style leads.