vastly overrated

Rating: Null/10 (7 November 2002)

One of the most overrated movies of all time. This movie actually started to look dated as I was watching it. I rushed out to see this after hearing a few coworkers RAVE about it. It was the first movie I'd ever seen on the big screen that I almost fell asleep on. I went with a friend and he wasn't impressed either. Later I kept coming back to TOTAL RECALL (another film I didn't like) while trying to figure out why I didn't like this movie. Then I realized that it was pretty much a rehash of TOTAL RECALL;everything from the guy living a "false" life, the band of "revolutionaries', the turncoat and even a psychic. Both films devolved into alot of shooting and the director of THE MATRIX also had the annoying and unfortunate habit of shooting alot of action sequences in slow motion. Nothing robs an action flick of its momentum and visceral kick like slow motion. I also found it baffling that people were making such a big deal about the "stop and rotate" photography where a character will for instance jump up in the air and "freeze" as though he's in a two dimenisional photograph but then have the camera orbit around him in three dimensional space. I remember seeing this done in a music video YEARS before THE MATRIX came out.
And those three "men in black"-type guys-what was up with them? I don't know how long it took me before I realized that I was supposed to be taking these guys seriously. The three of them together could not muster a thimbles worth of menace. They just looked goofy with the way they'd show up in a scene and look around SO SERIOUSLY.
Finally, I started to realize at some point that the task at hand for our heroes could not possibly be achieved in the time that remained so there was a lack of suspense that I only became fully aware of after I'd left the theatre. There was simply nowhere for this film to go except Sequel/Franchise Land and my interest would not survive the trip.