Gone with the Wind

Rating: 5/10 (15 June 2002)

I saw the first trailer/teaser of Windtalkers a year before the film
premiered. From the start, the premise was excellent. The promo
line said it all: The Navajo has the code. Protect the code at all
cost. You know that last sentence was bound to create a problem.
And being the director John Woo, a person capable of turning a
mediocre plot into an action classic (Mission Impossible 2), I was
already excited. Unfortunately Windtalkers turned out to be a parade of missed
opportunities. The premise was excellent, but it wasn't taken to it's
full potential. The characters were interesting, but miscasted. Nick
Cage's signature overacting ruined most scenes. The Navajo star,
with the smile of a toothpaste commercial, didn't look "Jap"
enough for some key scenes where that was an issue (an issue
that doubtlessly happened in real life), diminishing credibility. I was wondering how John Woo style would translate to a war film,
and I saw it wasn't much different from some of his former movies,
in both action and bodycount. The Japanese were merely the
swarm of shooting targets Chow Yun Fat would nail with two
pistols in other circumstances. Great for Rambo and pre-Vietnam
era war films, but in the 21st century such films look cheesy. Woo's best Hollywood film remains Face/Off. This one is okay, but
after Black Hawk Dawn and We Were Soldiers, Windtalkers
doesn't have a chance.