Realism Rules

Rating: 8/10 (22 August 2004)

Someone once said that to be successful, entertainment has to be either fantasy or realism. The B.S. is definitely trying for the latter, with lots of wobbly or blurred camera shots, several real life contemporary locations, and a plot that's largely feasible. While I found the shaky camera work a bit wearing after a while, and most of the locations to be (deliberately?) grey or washed out in colour, it makes a nice change to have the-world-outside-America represented by more than just London, Paris and Rome for once -- and in the other cities chosen, the tourist landmarks only make cameo appearances rather than getting blown up. The plot isn't bad, either - nice to see the hero actually hurting himself when making a death-defying leap, and not suddenly recovering. The car chase at the end is also good, and creepily reminiscent of Diana's death - a bit too much realism, maybe? It's even feasible to drive Naples to Berlin in 2 days - it's only 800 miles, I thought it was much further. Must be that Italian traffic ... [END SPOILER]
All in all, a worthy effort. Roll on the 3rd in the trilogy!