Screw You Physics!

Rating: 6/10 (25 June 2008)

This film is like the bastardised love child of Fight Club, The Matrix and Assassins Creed, but not quite as good as any of them individually.
The first major downfall of this film, is the obscene lack of realism. This I usually would not normally mind as I do not feel it is a necessity in modern cinema, had they not try to explain it away with something so completely preposterous. Apparently with a little bit of training, a surge of adrenaline will allow you to leap between skyscrapers, effectively put yourself in bullet time, and get some form of natural optical zoom in your eyes. I'm pretty dam sure that even with a massively over active adrenal gland you will not be able to accomplish any of these feats, and I would have much rather seen these things put down to something more realistic, like superpowers or aliens.
As my title summary suggests this film also takes the natural laws of physics, ramps a mustang in a barrel roll fashion over it, but fails, landing short and crushing any regard for them whatsoever. Seriously some of this stuff, although entertaining, was completely ridiculous! At one part Fox manages to flip a Dodge Viper, with 2 flat tires, over a barricade of police cars, I know your thinking "well that's pretty cool and it might happen" which is fair enough, and that's about where this particular stunt should have stopped, but it doesn't. To land this stretch of automotive acrobatics she plants the car wheels first into the side of what must be a 2-3 ton bus, immediately flipping the public transport vehicle onto its side with a car that must weigh less than half of that, powering it over and she is then able to drive off. Also the whole curving bullets thing, again although cool, was a bit silly and again totally impossible if you just have a little extra adrenaline. Frankly, I found these sections to be stupid and it spoiled the experience a little for me, as it stopped me from immersing myself in the film properly.
But even considering the above, this was by no means a bad film. The fight and chase sequences were all exhilarating (if a bit obtuse) and packed with good CGI. I found the plot to be much better than I anticipated with a couple of twists and it never seemed to get boring. The performances are pretty solid, as can be expected from the likes of Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie.
Also the beginning sequence reminded me greatly of the Fight Club scenario with the mundane, mild mannered office worker suddenly drawn into a world of violence and weird happenings. The introduction of Wesley Gibson and his life make it very easy to sympathise with the character.
In short I'd say that this film is undeniably cool and will not let you relax for one second, but was simply too implausible to enjoy the full experience.