Great Sci-Fi premise, squandered in a merely pretty good action movie.

Rating: 8/10 (9 May 1999)

This coulda been a contender. Actually, it kind of was, at least the first two hours. What starts out as a mediocre hacker movie rapidly reveals itself to be a full-bodied, classic, sci-fi story for the ages. But then it gets side-tracked, stepping away from the complicated story and getting comfortable in the special-effects enhanced, but basically old-fashioned, shoot-out and marshall-arts sequences. What could have been a great sci-fi film ends up as an action movie. Plenty of pulse-pounding action to be sure, but not what this film could have been.
To be fair, this film mainly suffers by comparison with those truly great dark sci-fi films: "Dark City," "Blade Runner," "City of Lost Children," "Brazil." Not being able to measure up doesn't make it a bad film, but the first two hours of this 144 minute epic promised so much more. It COULD have been in the same league, all it needed was a better ending to pull together a bunch of loose ends and to emphasize the sci-fi premise. Instead, and not a bad condolence prize for fans of Hong Kong action movies, Keanu Reeves gives a performance in the shootouts that would make Chow Yun Fat envious.