Oh my good GOD!

Rating: 3/10 (9 July 2000)

OK, first things first, this film is not a comedy...so why did I laugh more during its viewing than I ever have before in the cinema? Let me tell you: The major point of sheer humour was the ever shifting accent of the main bad guy's henchmen (who's name sadly eludes me). It seemed to drift somewhere in between Irish, South African, German and Australian (perhaps he's a really frequent flyer). The acting in the film is sooo bad! From The female leads drunken stumblings (signifying the advanced stages of a super virus no less) to Tom Cruises' senseless mugging and the most hilariously over emphasised pronunciation of the word "Loo" from my favourite hench-goon. The plot is possible the worst I have ever seen (and I am including every film I've watched through MST in this) and involves more 'characters not actually being who they look like but in fact wearing masks' than should ever have been allowed. This film probably took about 15 minutes to write! So, why oh why did John Woo ever decide to direct it? In a film with about 20 minutes of decent action in its 2 hours running time, why on earth did he think he could make it worth watching? Woo is a superb director of action movies but a lot of the slow-mo in the more sedate scenes just seemed unnecessary and down-right pretentious. The final quarter of an hour was superb however. The 'battle on bikes' was great and the final fist fight was entertaining if not really that impressive in terms of Martial Arts. But then again, as soon as the pre-credits action ceases, the film falls into a pit of irredeemable boredom where the 'plot' is 'explained'. My god, its so bad they even seemed to be apologising for its lameness by saying lines like "Couldn't be simpler" after explaining away some massive development in a few astute syllables. Frankly, this film was always going to be bad, but I was expecting a a piece of entertainment saved by its wonderfully entertaining action (a la Broken Arrow) but instead we have a wonderfully placid, souless piece of garbage based on classic Hitchcock with a smattering of entertainment towards the end. Even the trademark Woo double gun action looked toned down in comparison with the ridiculously great, tile splitting, plaster showering lobby scene from the Matrix! Now that the world has the Wachowski's, Woo has lost his originality and unique talents. We now know that there IS someone else out there who can do it just as well as he. In all, if you're a fan of MST, go see this film for its unintentionally hilarious appeal, but if you're after an all out action fest you're going to be deeply, deeply disappointed.