Can a rubber dress save a film?

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2003)

This film comes close to being very good indeed. Slick action, ludicrous bad guys, massive special effects, PVC clothing and a cracking piece of french obscenity. Putain, mais c'est un "winner", non?
Non. Unfortunately it seriously lets itself down by forgetting to edit out the dross (with any luck the inevitable director's cut DVD special edition will be about 30 minutes shorter). Main whinges (spoilers potentially):
I've been to a good many raves and festivals in my life (admittedly none in a cave that I can remember) - the allegedly hedonistic celebration in this film is more like a beneton advert. With a bit of a coffee commercial spliced in pretending to be a love scene.
And between the raves and coffee, I've managed to study some philosophy - what you get here are platitudes delivered with hammy sincerity and age-long dramatic pauses. It's like captain kirk meets the littlest hobo.
And where's the cutting edge I was promised? The alien-esque sets looked better in the alien films. The kung fu looked better in ... countless films frankly. And the bullet-time effects looked better in ... well, The Matrix.
Still ... Monica Bellucci in rubber. I can hardly ask for my money back, can I?