A fair cartoon, a mediocre movie

Rating: 2/10 (27 December 2005)

I am willing to suspend disbelief for many stories just to enjoy them as sheer entertainment, but this movie fails miserably on delivering anything resembling an enjoyable film experience other than watching the leads interact and wondering in what stage their affair was when the scene was shot. There are actually two movies here, both incomplete and lacking creative twists, and the action-movie is completely unbelievable to boot. The studio execs must have been jumping for joy when the Brangelina romance hit the tabloids because this movie may have otherwise passed into oblivion without much ado. Brad has already had a few duds and needed a career boost to retain his bankable reputation. I am astounded by professional critics who gave this film 3-stars-out-of-4!! The plot has so many holes I could write a thesis on the many ways the story insults its audience with its stupidity. I'm also tired of seeing a hero survive a battle with nary a wound against a battalion of shooters armed with unlimited weapons and bullet-proof armor while the hero merely stands in the open in shirtsleeves and a Kevlar vest, swinging his arms around returning fire. How did 30 or 40 trained assassins miss - at the least - blowing out Brad's kneecaps? Another annoyance was the mumbled dialog in many scenes, but since there wasn't much of a plot, this ultimately did not matter. "True Lies" did a far superior job in this genre.
Maybe some talented writer will take the first half of this movie and develop it into the story it could have been. The second half has already been done, re-done, and overdone, except this one has no ending. My 2 stars are for the production values and the score.