When style is a way above substance

Rating: 7/10 (13 August 2008)

Timur Bekmambetov is a remarkable director distinguished with recognizable and fascinating visual style. Yet before his 'Dozor' series and a small number of earlier feature films he came to prominence with highly artistic and memorable commercials for the Imperial Bank in early nineties (sadly, the bank has later gone bust and those cool adverts were no longer aired).
With his latest big budget thrill-ride starring Morgan Freeman, James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie he has once again demonstrated his outstanding directorial skills and infinite power of imagination. The film is packed with inventive gimmicks, plenty of complex visual effects and no nonsense stunning action scenes that may take one's breath away, especially when watched on a big screen.
I liked the filmmakers' approach towards localization of the movie. In a dubbed Russian version adapted for the Russian-speaking audience, some of the essential textual information in Russian (like amazing ATM touchscreen messages, guidances spotted on supermarket posters, and even the obscene inscription shaped out of the disintegrated keyboard) were seamlessly woven into the canvas of the film (no puns intended). I wonder why they decided not to replace web interface returning 'no hits' search results with Russian version as well.
Ironically, contrary to the movie, web search engines suggest truck loads of links for 'Wesley Gibson'; the majority however are pertinent to the protagonist of the movie.
The film also delivers one big and interesting message: many people may live their lives unaware of their true mission on earth and often overlook a chance to expand their real capabilities.
Unfortunately, the stellar cast, exceptional camera-work and visual fx extravaganza are practically the only assets of the film, whereas the plot itself, in my opinion, is reduced to zilch, lest to say is pure nonsense even in terms of comic book based movie.
The very idea of an ancient knitting loom prompting for the targets of assassination seems somewhat ludicrous.
Granted they have cracked those damn binary codes and decrypted certain names. But how on earth did they guess that those people are supposed to die but not to be awarded with Nobel Prize or something? And going all out just to obey stupid orders from an Oracle disguised as a pile of junk, I'm sorry - this is something preposterous.
Those people entertain themselves by engaging in killing spree just to bury the fact that their own names are compromised? Who else cares about this tricky arithmetics? I know this question sounds kinda silly and inappropriate in the context of such type of even more serious action flicks, but I always can't help wondering why the municipal authorities and the police seem to be so unaffected with all this bloody carnage on the streets?
All-in-all watchable and gripping at times owing to outlandish, if over-the-top, action sequences, but the storyline is too thin to be fully enjoyable.