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Thinman
Altar Boy of Jabootu
4 Posts |
 Posted - 03/14/2006 : 05:56:20 AM
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Our panoply of stars:
John Travolata: Plays Sean Archer, and then plays Castor Troy and then back to Sean Archer again.
Nicholas Cage: Plays Nicholas Cage and then plays Nicholas Cage and then back to Nicholas Cage again.
Joan Allen: She plays Sean Archer's wife. She played that blind woman in Manhunter, which was a good film. This however is a Bad Movie™. "Why oh why did I do it?" she must ask herself every day, strolling to the bank.
Other people: Some of them die, others don't, but never mind.
Brought to you by director John "I've got directorial trademarks and I'm not afraid to use them" Woo
While professing to be a fan of bad movies I have to confess I'm more likely to spend my hard-earned on something that's likely to be endearing for all the normal reasons rather than for its awfulness. Some time ago however I came into possession of Face/Off. It was a stock Friday night "too nackered to go out so I'll fester in front of a movie with a plate of favva beans and a nice Chianti" type fare and as such I was always careful to remove my brain beforehand in case it got hurt.
However, I recently saw it again with my brain accidentally lodged where it should be and it was then that I realised that it is indeed a very Bad Movie. Considering the main plot device consists of a face transplant, it was coincidental that, a little while later, I read about the world's first partial face transplant for real, performed in France on a woman who had been mauled by her dog while lying unconscious. It was while watching the first public appearance of this unfortunate woman that I realised how insanely ludicrous Face/Off really is and felt compelled to voice my thoughts on the matter.
We start in slow-motion. We'll be seeing a lot of this. Mr Woo, our director, had obviously gone to town on all his (three) trademarks in this film and the orgiastic use of slo-mo in this film hits us in the first second. We see John Travolta playing Sean Archer, together with his young son, on a merry-go-round. A more perfect idyll of family contentment and mutual love could not be imagined as they laugh and giggle and oh, it warms the cockles of the heart to see so much paternal affection. He is without doubt a Good Father. He does an annoying thing with his hand where he runs his fingertips down the face of the child, to which the child laughs but which merely notches up the Vom-O-Meter™ a couple of clicks in yours truly. I wonder if we'll be seeing him do that again? Hmmm. Anyway, cut to - Nicolas Cage! Playing, well Nicolas Cage obviously, but here he's called Castor Troy. He's moving in slow-motion too and the breeze flicks out his coat in a dramatic way, together with a sound effect which in no way sounds like a coat being flicked out. He then positions himself behind a high-powered rifle with scope. We see Sean Archer in his sights and are assured that we are in for an assassination.
Indeed, just as the credits are ending, Castor Troy squeezes the trigger and shoots Sean Archer in the back. Unfortunately, as his son is sitting in front of him on the merry-go-round horse, this means that Sean Archer gets the flesh-wound and the kid pops his clogs. And this is where we run smack into the first anomaly in this picture as we watch the injured Sean Archer crawl up to his prone son and grieve all over him. For this makes us wonder what on earth Castor Troy is doing while this is going on. You'd think he'd see this in his scope and think "Ooops! Missed. Better have another go" and then get Sean Archer while he's prone on the ground. But this is not to be, as the scene ends at this point. So I assume that Castor Troy just ups and thinks "Ooops! Missed. Ho hum, I'll have another go in a few years maybe, when he's better." Welcome to Plotholes-R-Us. Already! We've only just finished the opening credits. Somewhere among the crinkles of my cerebellum the words "bode", "well" and "not" meet and shake hands in greeting.
Actually I wonder if there's a parallel universe somewhere where indeed Castor Troy does try again and does kill Sean Archer - The End - and the audience is left to figure out the story with their own imaginations. Probably a lot more fun that this universe.
Six years later. That's what it says. I was wrong about the credits - they're still going! Behind them Sean Archer is pensively standing in his office as we get a view of numerous citations and awards he has received and stuck on the wall. I mean, really numerous. At least nine if I bother to step through the scene, and bother I do. Truly this man is a titan among the others in whatever he does, not sure really, we don't know yet. Inter-cut with a view of his large team efficiently going about their business we see him lovingly holstering his sidearm. I say lovingly because it's in slow motion you see and has a bit of a gun-erotica type feel about it. Anyway, he's obviously tooling up for some showdown or other for oooh, there's determination on his face! Something gonna "go down" I'm sure of it. If there were an Oscar™ for Grim Determination Countenance Adapted From A Screenplay then Mr Travolta really should be making a space somewhere on his mantelpiece. But there isn't.
To help us establish what he's waiting for we get some computer screens showing case history information on Castor Troy, listing some of the eeeevil things he's done. I say listing, but what I actually mean is throwing up several childish screens of basic data on different crimes. How this program is supposed to work I'm not sure. There's no menu bar so you can't print anything, or change the view, or open another file even. Maybe the FBI uses this program to scroll though every known crime until they get to one they're interested in. Even then, there are no options to stop this program. Anyway, as I said, here we see a quick list of crimes attributed to Castor Troy, appearing on this computer screen. One of these details the car bombing of an informant. "Damage Report:" it says. "Body burned beyond recognition…identity confirmed through dental records…tattoo of koi on chest was also an identifier" Huh? I count myself fortunate to have never seen a body burned beyond recognition, but I have to assume that a tattoo on the chest might have been a bit difficult to see. Still, I know little of such things.
Now we see Castor Troy again, dressed as a catholic priest and he's installing the most humungous bomb in Christendom in some part of the L.A. Convention Centre while a choir sings Handel's Hellelujah. He's having a ciggy, so we guess he hasn't repented, taken holy orders and is bombing for Jesus, but is in fact still eeeeevil. The bomb is called Sinclaire for some reason, as we can see from the computer display attached (with countdown timer natch). Indeed, "Sinclaire is hot" it says, and the timer shows us it will explode in… wait, 264 hours?! I mean, I know he has to get away and all, but 11 days? The tension, it's almost palpable! Something tells me this bomb going off might not be the main thrust of our story.
Inter-cut with this is Sean Archer balling out his staff for not having any info on Castor's whereabouts. So if he's still hanging around in his office, what was all that with the slo-mo gun holstering malarky? Anyway, he's getting irate as we get the impression that Castor is being sought, but the information just isn't coming in. Clumsily, we discover that he is boss of a covert anti-terrorist team. We learn this by him being exasperated at the lack of progress and shouting, "Of course! We are a covert anti-terrorist team that is so secret, when we snap our fingers NOTHING HAPPENS." So, you got that then, yeah? He's the boss of a covert anti-terrorist team.
Still got credits going on by the way. Maybe they're in slow motion too.
Back to Castor Troy, exalted now he's set his bomb and he gets down to the vibes of the choir, doing his grabbing-ass thang on an angelic/easy/all-American-Girl in the front row, marking him out to by like, a wild crazy dude man! Sort of like Nicolas Cage in a Nicolas Cage movie really. Back to Sean Archer about to answer his wife's call when one of his team barges in saying that Castor's brother (wait for it…) Pollux, has hired a plane with cash in his own name. I have to wonder, would he really do that? At the nearest airport on the very day his brother has planted a huge bomb? Well, anyway, it's jolly useful for our story that he did, otherwise we might have a plot hole or something.
Actually while we're about it, let's have a small diversion concerning these names. No doubt the programmers… err, I mean writers, imagined that Castor and Pollux Troy sounded pretty cool. Castor and Pollux were the brothers of Helen of Troy after all, but the trouble is they were twins and our brothers here are not. So, does that mean that their mother named her first child Castor in the hope that one day she'll have another son so she could call him Pollux? Or maybe she did have twins but one died in infancy and when she had another boy she called him the same name. Do people do that? Not sure. It's a guess anyway, the naming thing is never explained. Anyway, I have to bring something else up here (my dinner?). I have to assume it's not a word used in the USA, but the slang term bollocks is used extensively in the English-speaking world. Bollocks are what men keep in their scrotums, so to call your son Pollox is just demented! It could only possibly work if you mention that your brother is called Castor, every time you gave your name! Outside the USA this guy would have been a laughing stock his entire life. Can you imagine the taunts at school? No wonder he grew up to by a psychopathic criminal. As I said though, I have to assume the word is not used in the USA, but it caused a few giggles over here.
Anyway, back to the excitement. Did I say excitement? I meant movie. Off dashes Sean Archer with all his team as we see Castor Troy being met by henchmen and brother at the plane. Castor gets out of his car in slow motion and does that thing with his coat again. That's in slow-motion too - he'll never escape at this rate. A henchman takes off his coat and lo! A brace of ornate automatic pistols are in holsters in the small of his back. Yes, two of them. That's like, well, one per hand almost. This is sort of risky in a way because he's in a public place and we saw quite clearly a policeman walk past when he got out of the car. But it doesn't really matter I suppose. Anyway, we get a glimpse of the love he has for his sibling when he bends down to tie the shoelace of his little brother, awww. He takes out a wad of dollars (in slow motion) for payment to his henchmen but he refuses them it, in return for not looking after his bro' properly or something. Which is a bit strange because these self-same lackeys appear later in the film and seem to be his general day-to-day heavies, so perhaps this was a bonus rather than their normal salary. It must be annoying though; not only does your boss snatch back the humungous tip he was going to give you, he does it in slow motion. That's just rubbing it in.
They all get in the plane as we see the stewardess just hanging up the phone giving us the clue that she's a undercover agent. In order to keep her cover she has to sit on Castor's lap and suck his tongue. Ewww! That Castor bloke! He acts right crazy he does. Sort of like, well, Nicolas Cage a bit sometimes.
Just then, as they are taxiing on the runway, gasp! Loads of police cars, bikes and a helicopter appear from nowhere and start chasing the plane. However, Sean Archer has got his own car and comes at it from the front, doing that chicken thing. Castor, now in the cockpit urging the pilot to keep going recognises Archer, even though he's two thousand yards away. Lots of gung-ho action and lightning-fast cutting with snappy Hollywood-esque dialogue at this point, as you might expect. The undercover FBI agent proves to be incompetent by being disarmed by Pollox (teehee) who merely throws his briefcase at her. Hopefully the real FBI has added a section to their training manual to combat this fiendishly effective manoeuvre. Actually, all this fast-paced cutting is counter-productive here. It's so over the top that it actually becomes obvious that the cars are not really going that fast and they're miles away from the plane and no pets were harmed in this motion picture etc. Methinks you crash-zoom and jiggle the camera too much, Mr Woo.
The pilot, being sensible as pilots usually are, refuses to take off under the circumstances so he gets whacked and Castor steers the plane towards the balsa-wood and sugar-glass aircraft hanger set up nearby. Rather amusingly there are two people standing outside this building say, oh, I don't know, about a plane width apart from each other, ensuring they have to dramatically dive out of the way in the nick of time. What were these people thinking?
"Hey look Eddie! A jet plane coming straight for us!"
"No, surely not!"
"He is, honest. Look!"
"Well, you seem to be right Jim, but I'm sure he won't crash into this building, no sirree. I think it's fairly safe to continue to stand here, passing the time of day and … Jesus Christ!"
What would be the point of crashing a plane into an aircraft hanger without having a couple of peeps diving for cover in the nick of time? But apart from diving for cover whenever planes crash into their building, what on earth are these people employed for?
"So Mr Pants, you're applying for the Diving For Cover Whenever A Plane Crashes Into The Hanger job are you? I have to warn you it involves a lot of standing around."
"Actually no, I'm here for the Standing In The Open So That The Baddies Can Shoot Me Easily job, but I'll take whatever's going."
Now we get a glimpse of another facet of this film which really helps in edging it towards the "No way, Ray!" end of the credibility spectrum. Note the word "another" for verily there are more to come. Oh yes. This film was made in 1997 and the horrors of the world have unfortunately shown us since then what happens when aeroplanes crash into buildings. So I would be the first to hope for a divergence from reality here, but the cartoon character of what we do get really doesn't do this film any favours. What we get is a series of fireworks going off at various spots fairly near to the plane as it grinds to a halt, and continue even when it's stationary, as well as a number of Generic Barrels Of Stuff ™ leaping into the air sort of like they did in Backdraft.
We'll be seeing more of these fireworks later in the film, and I use the word advisedly because in no way do they resemble things exploding, which I think is what they're supposed to be. They genuinely are fireworks. Mind you, with a jet aircraft and a helicopter eating up the budget I suppose they had to economise somewhere.
So there you are, Castor Troy in a plane. There's the doorway and you know there are dozens of heavily armed and highly trained FBI agents outside. What do you do? Well in John Woo's universe you take a running jump and launch yourself horizontally out of the doorway, twist in the air and fire with both guns in slow motion. Despite the doorway being about eight feet off the ground Castor in no way seems injured by doing this and in fact manages to hit one agent, who I assume was the poor sap who got the Standing In The Open So That The Baddies Can Shoot Me Easily job. Despite this deadly accuracy exhibited by his foes, Sean Archer leaps on top of a car and standing up in broad daylight starts shooting at the aircraft. Pollox (chortle!) is emerging now, more cautiously and firing a machine gun at all and sundry, except Sean Archer I guess. However, he very quickly gets bored with that and he too leaps out horizontally while twisting in mid air and firing in slow motion. One FBI agent gets his ear shot (plot point!) and much improbable shooting is enjoyed by all. I should mention that the fireworks are still going off for some reason. I suppose it would be a bit boring with just 20 people blazing away at each other with automatic weapons. Got to spice it up a bit.
[img]http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3225/diving1a7cl.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/7047/diving1b2td.jpg[/img]
Tiddly pom, la di daa, where were we? Better get a bit less detailed otherwise I'll be here all day. We've only just finished the opening credits. Pollox (arf!) is captured and hauled away. Castor is stalked, by Sean Archer alone of course, because suddenly most of the agents disappear for a convenient period of time. Except for just a few who are wearing "I'm going to get hit instead of the hero" T-shirts, for the hero of course is indestructible. And hey! Archer has got hold of another gun. That makes two he's got now. Hmmm. Various stray shots manage to switch on a jet engine in a test tunnel. This is normal practice as we know - a mechanism is built into all machinery allowing users to switch them on by firing a number of bullets into them, in case of "on" button malfunction. A few (more) maniacally improbable sequences later and they're face-to-face doing that holding-the-gun-at-arms-length-into-the-face-of-the-other-routine. Honestly, if I'm going to be identifying all these clichés I'm going to have to think of a better naming scheme. Is there an official numbering system somewhere I could use? The ASCII Cliché Set or something.
There's a bit of dialogue and then Castor shoots but he's empty so immediately surrenders and drops to his knees while Archer looks down on him holding his gun to Castor's forehead. So I find it a bit weird, given the positioning, that Archer doesn't notice Castor reaching behind his back, moving his jacket out of the way and extracting a knife from a holster. IITS, I suppose because he also fails to pull the trigger when Castor attacks with the knife. Instead he does a bit of foot-fu and kicks the villain back into the path of the test jet engine. Archer then demonstrates his intimate knowledge of jet engine testing machinery by immediately identifying which button among a bank of a dozen or so is the one to make the jet engine go faster. Remarkable, I thought at first. Then I thought, incredible. Quite literally - not credible. Chalk up another. This film is indeed incredible. Castor is thrown back and crashes against the tunnel's end. He's dead at last. Or is he? Surely he is, he must be.
Or is he?
The tension! I can hardly bear it. Or I can. Anyway, cut to Archer arriving home. Home is in the suburbs and he walks into a domestic you-don't-understand-me mother/teenage daughter moment. There I go again with my hyphenated clichés. Maybe by the end of this they'll be a cliché unto themselves. Maybe it should be Face-Off instead of Face/Off. So he's asked to deal with it and finally their daughter Jamie, played by Dominique Swain, turns round allowing us to see a bit of eye makeup and a nose ring. The horror! What has become of our dear, sweet daughter? This was in 1997 - was that so terribly rad then? Still, we're obviously being set up to go with the usual teen anti-parent angst thing, so we'll go with it. She flounces off in a huff and Archer tells his wife Eve that he got Castor Troy, their son's murderer and much relief is displayed. He promises to get a desk job now etc and he does that fingers-down-the-face thing and the future looks bright. OR DOES IT? Again I'm wistfully imagining that parallel universe where the answer to that is "yes, actually, that's it."
Next day he's walking through the outer office to his own and everyone spontaneously breaks into applause. Gee, gets you right here it does. He's having none of it though, reminding them of the officers lost during the operation and reminding us that he's one tough hard-ass cookie bastard hombre hard-bitten boss man chief on the edge. He goes through Castor Troy's file on his computer again, bringing up his son's murder. Again with the lame interface with no menu options or cursor or anything. Actually, this was useful for me because I see now that it's called a carousel, not a merry-go-round as I said first of all, so any American readers might have been wondering what the hell I was talking about. Sorry about that. Separated by a common language and all that. Anyway, he does what looks like Alt-O on his keyboard and a childlike "CASE CLOSED" comes up on his screen. Would it be that easy to officially close an FBI case I ponder? I hope nobody accidentally does Alt-O while browsing through Osama Bin Laden's file one day.
OK, we're 20 minutes in to the movie and if I know my PLOTOMATIC™ as well I should, it's time for a major plot twist and/or character introduction about now. Oh hey, guess what! Dr Hollis Miller (played by CCH Pounder) turns up from Special Ops with a zip disc that was found on Castor's body and hands it to Archer (in slow motion do you think? Actually, now that you mention it…). Could be a plot device. Better handle it with care. And what a doozey it is! It's one of those non-protected everything-you-want-to-know-about-my-evil-plans (oh I give up, I'll use quotes) "-on a disc, except for where it is" plot devices. Not only that, but whoever has written this thing has spent at least four months creating a wide variety of computer graphics to explain it all, rather than say, just writing a pdf. It starts of with a cartoon of a woman's face with the caption "Hi. I'm Sinclaire" and at the bottom it says "and I'm going to blow you" then her face turns into a skull and a big flashing "AWAY" appears. Now, I've worked as a computer programmer in my time and even something as naff as that would take a bit of time to do. Would somebody spend that time? What for? Who was the audience? Where was the "Skip This Introduction" button? Then, believe it or not, some program or other starts taking us (far too rapidly for the casual reader) through every detail of the bomb we saw Castor Troy installing all those years ago. What? Minutes ago? Why, what did I say? Anyway, I can't help wondering why this program was created. Stretching my imagination to breaking point I could concede that the makers of the bomb made it for Castor in order for him to know how to set the timer and connect it all up, but it seems a bit rash to put every single detail of the project it on a non-protected disc which automatically runs a program explaining it to the casual viewer. Oh, chill out Nik, it's only a movie. Despite a bewildering series of images and text flying past the screen, Archer determines that it has a biological payload, and is told it's enough to flatten a square mile plus fallout damage.
All right, our MacGuffin at last. They have a bomb ticking and they've got to find it before it blows. Jinkers, just as well Castor set the countdown to such a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnggggg time eh? Otherwise it might, you know, blow up or something. 240 hours. Does this sound contrived to you? Because if not, I'm not telling it right. The writers make a stab at logic by having Archer trying to put the squeeze on Pollux before moving us to the direction they want to take us. I guess these days they would just rendition his ass somewhere and apply electrodes to his pollux - geddit? I should be on the stage. But nay, there's nothing he can do. Nothing I tell you! They're at their wits end! If only they could come up with some plan, however crazy it sounds, to get the information from Pollux. In our alternative universe we'd be going "ho hum, never mind" and putting on our jim jams for bed at this point, but No! This is the Wooniverse and "there is one other possibility" and it comes with its own ominous musical cue too.
Now, I was going to start waxing lyrical on the quite blatant absurdity of this next scene. I'm still tempted too, but I had a peek on imdb for Face/Off and under the Trivia section it said "The script as presented to director John Woo was set in the future, but Woo suggested setting changing [sic] it to the present to focus on the dramatic and psychological elements of the storyline." So presumably drama and psychology will cease to exist at some point in the future. This does leave us however with a story which is set in the present but which uses technology which is in the future. This is insane. It's like making a film about the Battle of Waterloo and having the English turn up in a squadron of Phantom jets. I don't deny that a face transplant will be possible. As I mentioned, the first step has been made in France at the tail end of 2005, but the stuff we see here is fantastic. And I mean that literally - it's fantasy. So where does that leave the viewer? I guess I have to come to the sad conclusion that Mr Woo doesn't really care. "Hey, it doesn't matter! We've got loads of fireworks to take your mind of it," he cries. "This way…mind the plotholes… that's right. That's it. Fireworks this way…we're walking, we're walking…"
So, I plough on. Sorry about this. We go to the Walsh Institute somewhere near some mountains, presumably just outside L.A. and there Archer sees with horror that they're keeping Castor alive. Special Ops woman tells Archer to relax as "he's a turnip." To demonstrate this she stubs out a cigarette on Archer's arm. Whether she's be allowed to smoke there (I thought you got strung up in L.A. for smoking?), and whether she would demonstrate his vegetable-like state in this crude manner is all open to discussion of course. And that's a point, if Castor is a turnip, presumably brain-damaged and in a coma, how come he's all fine and dandy when he wakes up later?
Oh no, I've gone and ruined it for you now. Bugger. Forget I said that.
So the plan is to exchange faces and Archer will then gain the trust of Pollux and find out where the bomb is. Apparently all the technology for face transplants is up and running and available and working 100%. Not only that, they can recede hairlines (and put it back, a boon for bald men everywhere), change voices to match another's at the flick of a switch, replicate any and every physical marking. Also, I presume, due to the subsequent events in the plot, they can change the skeleton, muscle mass, fat density and proportion, penis size, physical quirks and mannerisms, illnesses, blemishes, teeth and in fact every single physical and vocal characteristic of anyone. Just how far in the future were they planning on setting this?
In fact, I'm sorry, I've just realised that even the casual observer will notice that these men have completely different teeth, and yet nothing is done about this. Oh, this is a stoopid movie.
We get to see our plot point FBI agent with the damaged ear currently being operated on. Apparently lasers in the future can create matter out of nothing and several of them are doing that now with a new ear in a dish, or something. They are different coloured lasers though, so I'm sold. Also we see that lasers can join body parts together with hardly a scar. Like I say, it's incredible! Then we get some more computers powered with the Graphical Exposition Engine™ which, at the press of a key, start showing in incredible detail how the whole transplant thing will work, even using graphical representations of both their faces and bodies. So presumably they've both had their entire bodies scanned and digitised at some point. Castor's flat on a slab so I can see that, but Archer? Perhaps it's an FBI entrance requirement, of the future!
After being shown how they plan on doing it Archer freaks out. No, it's all too much. It simply can't be done. There must be another way! He'll get their gang to talk! So we waste a few more minutes while he fruitlessly attempts this, introducing a couple of characters as he does so. We meet Sasha, played by Gina Gershon, who was Castor Troy's girlfriend. Archer threatens her with her son, saying he'll lock her up and he'll go into care, which seeing as she's a convicted felon on probation was probably going to be a possibility anyway I suppose. He's just so damned desperate is all. Sasha's brother Dietrich is called in too (Nick Cassavetes) but it's no use. They won't talk. The only thing he can do is lie to Eve, his wife, change his face and body and voice to Castor's, go to a super-secret prison in God Knows Where and try and get the information from Castor's brother and then come back and have his face and body replaced exactly as it was without telling anyone. All other courses of action are sheer lunacy and bound to fail.
Oh, did I mention that he's not allowed to tell anybody about this? Why not? Well, I think you can guess.
Talking of script, you'd think they could come up with a better impetus to his final decision. He itemises out loud the things they want him to do; break the law, risk his neck and leave in the dark all those who love and trust him and then he says "I'll do it." Well, I know can Bergman can go a bit overboard sometimes with characters wrangling internally with questions of great moment, but blimey, they could meet us half way here.
Anyway, we've finally got there. Almost. Nearly. Oh God, just go under the knife will you? We're half-an-hour in and I want to see some fireworks! He's got to tell Eve he's got one more job, without saying what it is, (oh hey, he did that fingers down the face thing again. Cool. That's probably it now though, I don't think we'll see him do that again) and he performs the Putting Blanket Back Over Sleeping Offspring Manoeuvre (patent pending) and a bit more soul-searching while he's waiting to go into theatre. However, it's at that moment he decides to ask the doctor to replace his bullet wound scar when it's all over. Sure, no problem of course, but you'd think he would have gone over the details a little sooner?
Oh lordy, I'm getting too fond on the sound of my own keyboard, I'll have to move along a bit otherwise we'll be here forever.
[img]http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/6451/graphicalexpositionengine19rs.jpg[/img]
So, yes, he has the operation. He has Castor's face and everything else, so it's now Nicolas Cage back in the mix playing Archer-As-Castor. Archer's face is left casually floating in a bowl of water somewhere by the look of it. Doesn't matter though, he'll be back soon to pick it up.
Or will he?
"Archer's gonna be pissed when he comes back from his training op and finds out" expositions one of Archer's staff clumsily as they watch him board the helicopter to take him to the prison. My Gaaaad! They have no idea! They have no idea how to deliver convincing dialogue that is. Or maybe they do have an idea of how to deliver unconvincing dialogue. Take your pick. So Archer-As-Castor finds himself in some metal prison room somewhere, with magnetic boots controlled by his keepers, assured by Evil Head Prison Guard that the Geneva Convention is void here, Amnesty International doesn't even know of this place and that Archer-As-Castor's ass belongs to him. Which in the context of his surroundings is perhaps cause for concern. Note to self: pencil in that ass transplant for when I get back. Little green lights on his boots indicate the electromagnetic force is in operation and he can't walk. There's a bit of time spent on this so this may crop up later. I'm not saying it will, just, you know, might.
What about these prisoners though? Unless they're all going to be there until they die, you'd think one of them might spill the beans about this super-secret facility upon their release? Oh, what do I know? I won't even think about Pollox's legal team and how they might have reacted to him being immediately spirited away to an undisclosed location.
The security nerve centre of this super-secret prison overlooks the inmates' canteen (?! S'funny, from some angles that sentence looks a bit silly) and we have a look at both as Archer-As-Castor is in line for some grub. He sees Pollux and goes towards him when suddenly he's attacked by Ivan (played by Chris Bauer) and Obligatory Prison Fight breaks out, each trading punches that would normally floor a rhinoceros. The viewer's Surprise-O-Meter will remain resolutely pointing to "not" when we see Archer-As-Castor winning but refusing to finish Ivan off. I have to say that I like this bit of acting by Nicolas Cage as he crows over his victory, crying out "I'm Castor Troy!" he almost breaks down but then covers it up. As the good Mr Begg is oft to do, credit where credit's due.
But that's enough credit. Back to the crud. Oh no, who would have believed it, the real Castor Troy murderer/terrorist/criminal wakes up out of his professionally-induced coma in a place that's not guarded or has nurses or anything, except a free phone to the outside world on the wall near the bowl with Archer's face in it. What are the chances of that? It's incredible! So after an irate call to previously-mentioned henchmen, they turn up to the unguarded and completely empty Walsh Institute with Dr Walsh himself in tow. So I guess Castor went through all the papers in the unlocked offices and found out who the main guy was and his address and they tied up his family (he doesn't look upset enough for them to have been killed) and brought him out in the middle of the night in his pyjamas. Yep, I'll buy that. So he's going to have Archer's face put on his, as well as every single aspect of Archer's body. We have to assume the following piece of dialogue is missing from the final cut of the film:
>Castor Troy: Now I look and sound exactly like Archer! That's incredible! So, who else knows about the original operation you did?
Dr. Walsh: Well, please don't kill me but there's an FBI agent who worked for Archer and another one who worked in Special Ops. Why yes, I do happen to have their names and addresses and you'll be glad to hear they both live locally and that each lives alone and is guaranteed to be in tonight. Indeed, I'm sure they'll answer the door to your two henchmen and allow themselves to be brought here now and I'm resolutely positive that they are the only ones who know anything. Oh, it's funny you should mention it but no, we have no written record of this operation either, nor on any computer system anywhere, promise. Please don't kill me.
Well, while that's all ending up on the cutting room floor, we're back in prison watching Archer-As-Castor talking to Pollox. He says he can't even remember why Ivan would have wanted to fight him and is "reminded" that he slept with Ivan's wife and sister together the day Ivan was put away. Then Archer-As-Castor manages to get his brother to tell him where the bomb is, and is triumphant. Then he hears he has a visitor. Hurrah! His release! It's all working perfectly. Then, finally, our two heroes and villains meet. Well, not finally, more like half-wayily for we are but an hour into this. Only one hour and 15 mins to go. Flies by doesn't it? Archer-As-Castor has a visitor indeed but gasp! It's Castor-As-Archer! In slow motion, because it enhances the drama of the scene. Maybe this is why drama dies out in the future, it simply ground to a halt. So, blimey, oh lordy, what to do? Archer-As-Castor in jail and Castor-As-Archer living with Eve, his wife. Biblically, probably.
Castor-As-Archer springs his brother Pollox from the super-secret prison into his custody and convinces him that the best thing to do is to give away the location of the bomb so he, Castor-As-Archer, can disarm it and win major brownie points and do things with the FBI that every major criminal would dream of doing. Cue pointless countdown of bomb timer - he defuses it with two seconds to go. After 240 hours (that's 864,000 seconds) that's pretty damn fortunate timing eh? Verging on the convenient you might say. Almost - whisper it! - contrived. But there's no point in having a visible countdown on a bomb. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to finish then. I mean; But there's no point in having a visible countdown on a bomb if you don't have it defused in the nick of time.
Now we come to another (count them!) incredible moment. Of course Archer-As-Castor has to break out of this maximum-security super-secret prison, but how? Gosh, they must have been scratching their heads on this one for ages. It reminds me of a story my father used to tell me of a newspaper comic strip he read in his youth. There was a secret agent who always got into terrible scrapes but always managed to escape his captors in the end. However, one particular time the cartoonist had placed his hero in an extreme state of capture, with death imminent and no possible way out and then he'd fallen ill. It was left to the deputy editor to come up with the climax for the next issue. Thousands of people opened their papers and turned to this comic strip which started "With one bound he was free!" Well, Archer-As-Castor is limbering up.
While on exercise he asks an inmate how to get the boots off and is told there's only one way, in the clinic, just before they fry your skull. So, in literally five seconds (yes, this film had made me that anal, I counted), based on that limited information he develops his plan of escape and starts a fight with a guard after demanding a cigarette. He's beaten to a pulp but manages to grab the ciggy. So they take him back to his cell and he's kept in isolation for a month. Oh no, I'm wrong. Would you believe, he's taken to the clinic where we see somebody's skull being fried. Hey, it's our old rhinoceros buddy Ivan. What are the chances of that then? The semi-conscious Ivan is dragged off and Archer-As-Castor put in the hot seat and asks for a light for his ciggie. As the head clamps are being put in position Archer-As-Castor tells the prone Ivan that he didn't touch his wife or sister, they love him very much, so let's get outta here!
So we are to believe that a man harbouring such deep hatred for Castor over a number of years, as well as just having had severe and prolonged electric shock treatment would be able to take this in, forgive Castor and then help him escape, all in about three seconds? Sounds right to me! So, with one bound Archer-As-Castor is free and he and Ivan are laying waste to criminally ineffectual guards. Then the shooting starts. Now, a little word on the fireworks if you'll let me. I think we all know what squibs are and I think we're all tired of seeing them go off to simulate bullets in unrealistic ways, but when you literally see fireworks shooting into the sky to simulate the effect of bullets your sense of disbelief demands an immediate renouncing of its suspension. I'm not kidding, these bullets don't ricochet off metal, they explode in a shower of sparks! I'm going to have to get a screenshot to demonstrate my point. In fact, this prison is a veritable storehouse of fireworks and every one of them is just waiting for that stray bullet to send them rocketing into the sky. Either that or they're triggered by sound.
More uninspired lunacy follows when they gain the security control room and Archer-As-Castor heads for a keyboard and starts randomly typing. On no screen is his input displayed. What kind of system is this? Are the users normally so incredibly perfect at touch-typing they never make a mistake? Is there a single computer system in the planet which doesn't display what you're typing in? Instead we get more Graphical Exposition Engine™ displays with simplistic diagrams of stuff and things start exploding all over the place. Ah, I see, he must have run MakeEverythingExplode.exe. Comes free with XP. Lucky he knew where to find it, on a system he's never seen before. Maybe he just pressed Alt-O loads of times.
[img]http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/1985/graphicalexpositionengine2a5wz.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/5081/fireworks28or.jpg[/img]
Ivan snuffs it, oh dear, we care, and Archer-As-Castor escapes to the outside to find himself… on a disused oil rig! Out to sea! Within swimming distance of land! He's chased by helicopters. Why? The guards could have just waited up there for him instead of getting into helicopters, starting them up and circling the oil rig on the off-chance he might make it up there. One day I'm going to count the number of plot holes in this film, it might be a record. It's like a Swiss cheese in movie form. Anyway, over the side he goes. Nobody could survive that leap, nobody I tell you!
Or could they?
To be fair, I must admit that I don't think I could have come up easily with a plausible way of getting Archer-As-Castor out of that jail, but I'm not a Hollywood screenwriter. I guess though that if you're going to dig a hole for your hero so deep that only a lunatic device can get him out then surely it's the deepness of the hole you should address, not merely go out and buy loads of fireworks and hope nobody will notice.
[img]http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/8194/ricochets1ph.jpg[/img]
Back with Castor-As-Archer and he's forgotten the birthday of their dead son Mikey, but gets away with it and they go out to the graveyard and lay things at the gravestone and she cries. This scene I think is to allow us to believe that his wife is starting to find Castor-As-Archer's behaviour a little odd, as well as having his beeper switched off, so it's not until he gets to the office that he's informed of Archer-As-Castor's escape. He demands to see the body and is enraged to learn it hasn't been recovered yet. Meanwhile Archer-As-Castor has found land (yes, he made it! Were you worried?) and steals a car and goes to the home of Dietrich and his sister Sasha (Castor Troy's girlfriend if you remember). Dietrich has a few henchmen and some women around for some drugs or whatever. Archer-As-Castor tells them what he wants to do next. He wants to kidnap Archer, leading to some immortal dialogue:
Thug: So, once we kidnap super cop, then what?
Archer-As-Castor: Surgery. I'd like to take his face…off
Dietrich: You want to take his face…?
Archer-As-Castor: Yeah. His face… off. Eyes, nose, skin. Off!
Dietrich: Face… off!
Now I don't now if you noticed, but they managed to slip the title of the movie into the dialogue there. Clever huh?
Do I need to mention that Dietrich's place is a vast loft apartment? Also at the party is Sasha's son Adam and Archer-As-Castor learns that Adam is his son! I mean, Castor's son. While they mull over this we see masses of FBI agents in full gear gathering together on the terrace of a building 150 yards away! I know little of FBI tactics, but I would have expected them to be, well, a bit closer. But no, this is Woosville, USA and they need to be 150 yards away so they can all open fire on the building to get rid of the surplus bag of squibs Mr Woo's had hanging around since filming Broken Arrow. How did they know about him being there? Why, Pollux Troy has been hanging about on the roof of a nearby building for an undisclosed amount of time on the off-chance that Archer-As-Castor might turn up at his old friend's place. I mean, that's what I'd do, if I were a terrorist criminal under arrest who for some reason has been allowed out of custody.
You see what I mean about every single scene throwing up inconsistencies and errors? And yes, I did mean that because you see, I haven't said that every scene throws up inconsistencies and errors. Reading that is what watching this movie is like.
So the FBI start shooting, guided by Castor-As-Archer, and pretty much everything starts exploding whether it's traditionally combustible or not. Dietrich reaches for his shotgun, in slow motion, and wonders around blowing away FBI agents while his accomplices dive horizontally through the air shooting wildly in slow motion. Realism!
Archer-As-Castor and Sasha and her son Adam try to escape. They put radio headphones on Adam so he can't hear the shooting (wha?! 30 cops and villains blazing away with automatic weapons is quieter than the radio?) Actually, as every non-USA citizen has learned over the years, all Americans have guns, they are taught how to use them from birth and statistically every USA citizen will be shot at least once, but it'll probably be a flesh wound so it doesn't really hurt. However, that said, this kid's nonchalance in the face of this truly ferocious fire fight is quite astounding. Left to his own devices, instead of cowering under a table, wetting himself and screaming in fear, he wanders over to the one spot in the whole complex which has bright under-floor lighting and stands there, lit up like a Christmas tree and raises his arm with a beatific smile on his face. How could anyone even think that up? Not even an infinite number of monkeys could ever come up with that. His mother, as any mother would under the circs, has let him do this while she's concerned herself with the more important duties of picking up dead men's guns and shooting other men in slow motion. This all leads up to a pathetic "rescue" by Archer-As-Castor who runs over and instead of just jumping over a dead body, dives over it, does a summersault and then picks up the boy just in the nick of time as another FBI agent appears and empties his clip into the glass floor because, uh, that's where they were just a second ago and, well, you never know they might come back.
[img]http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/919/xmastreekid5wi.jpg[/img]
That bit wasn't in slow motion though. Oh, sorry, yes it was. In fact this entire section is in slow motion pretty much. So, just to be contrary, I'll rush though it.
Castor-As-Archer turns up and shoots Dietrich. No idea why, Dietrich was his loyal and trusted friend. Go with it Nik, just go with it. Our two leads meet in a circular hallway lined with mirrors (all the FBI agents have stopped doing stuff now and disappeared to allow this to play out) Archer-As-Castor tries to shoot Castor-As-Archer but the latter escapes the hail of bullets by, uh, running around the circle with his hand over his head. Must…move…arm…faster! groans Archer-As-Castor as his demonic spray of bullets is outrun again. If only he could just shoot ahead of the fleeing villain instead of merely charting his progress with a stream of bullets. It's not possible I know, but I thought the USA was built on the pioneering spirit, he could at least try.
[img]http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/7378/run4zb.jpg[/img]
Then, finally at last we've arrived at a cool and clever bit of the movie. Or at least it would be if I could just get rid of the niggling suspicion that it's all a bit contrived. The two leads are facing each other on either side of a mirror, which is mirrored on both sides, pointing their guns at each other through this mirror. But of course, they're also pointing the guns at their reflections as well. But of course their reflections are now of the ones they want to kill. Oh, it fair does your head in, I just can't handle the subtle nuances of the situation! However, to make this work you'd have to have a big house with a hallway leading off to other rooms and put a whole array of stand-alone mirrors in it. Would people do this? One mirror perhaps, but a whole circle of them? Hmmm, not sure. And they're mirrored on both sides, so you can even see yourself when you stand behind them, in the dark. And as we quite clearly see, this remaining mirror stands in the way to a corridor, so you'd have to go round it to get anywhere. I'm being picky aren't I?
Despite being more-or-less exactly the same height as exposited earlier (phew! Lucky huh?) and the fact that they are both aiming their guns directly in the faces of their reflections, when they start shooting they both miss! This ensures hours more fun and games and fireworks and showers of sparks. Pollux is killed among all this carnage. I could try and explain the lunacy of this as well but the effort exhausts me. Castor-As-Archer is upset of course, but nobody can see why. Needless to say, Archer-As-Castor escapes. And Sasha and her miraculous, brightly-lit son escape too.
Back at base Castor-As-Archer while silently mourning his brother has his boss come in and starts haranguing him. Archer's obviously become a cop on the edge, out of control and the chief is suspending him and demanding his badge! Or rather, the modern, FBI version of this. I was going to start this next sentence with "Laughably…" but then realised I was so far away from laughing at the idiocies every single scene throw up that I changed my mind. So, ludicrously, in this middle of this we are given a small hint that his boss's heart may be a bit on the wobbly side. The small hint consists of the his boss stopping, clutching his chest with a gasp, going red in the face and grimacing. So, you got that then yeah? Just in case we haven't, he does it again! Now, we've only seen this guy once before I know, but you think they'd have hinted at his dodgy heart back then. This guy is on the verge of collapse! As it is we've got to watch Castor-As-Archer reacting to being told he's being closed down in such a way as to think, hmmmm, I wonder if he'd kill him? I wonder how? Hey, wait, doesn't this guy have a heart condition? I seem to remember something about that four seconds ago. So Castor-As-Archer closes the blinds to his office and kills his boss with a blow to the back of the head and an elbow strike to the chest. But those things don't show up on post-mortems do they, so I guess he'll get away with it. The fiend!
[img]http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/4910/boss8aw.jpg[/img]
Waahaay! Only half-an-hour to go! Let's see, about seven minutes of slow-motion prelude to the big showdown. Say, ten minutes of explosions, chases and triumph in the showdown, four minutes of wrap-up coda. So that leaves about nine minutes of "oh cut to the chase!" crap. So Archer-As-Castor meets up with his wife Eve, who's freaked out of course 'cos he looks like Castor. He tells her that his blood type is O-negative, Castor's is AB and leaves. Later she gets a sample from her sleeping "husband", checks it out at the hospital and indeed it's AB. Archer-As-Castor is there, somehow knowing where in the hospital she would be to do this, and when, and teleporting up behind her just as she discovers the truth. No, really, he's been standing about five feet away from her while she's been testing the blood and she never saw him. Honestly, you can see the plot holes growing and merging into one gigantic chasm as we progress from scene to scene. You can imagine John Woo saying "hold on! Please hold on, we're nearly at the exciting bit!"
So she's well confused now. On the verge of believing, but not quite. She pulls a gun on him (told you all Americans have guns) but he moves closer, moves the gun aside and does that fingers down the face thing. Oh I get it! That makes her realise he really is her husband. I'm such a doofus.
Castor-As-Archer shows up at the hospital while Eve is treating Archer-As-Castor's wound. Did I mention his wound? It doesn't matter, it's his magical flesh wound and it won't be bothering him again. This is a pointless scare thing - ooh, will he find her and Archer-As-Castor together? No, but two amusing things come out of this. Castor-As-Archer says as he leaves "Lies, distrust, mixed messages. This is turning into a real marriage" which is sorta funny. But also, one of his henchmen (played by that bloke who played Proximus's personal attendant in Gladiator) does a sort of coat flip thing but it's not in slow motion! So it sooo does not look particularly cool. Poor guy, he should have had a certain percentage of cool slow-motion screen time written into his contract.
That's the nine minutes done, now we have the prelude to the showdown. We're at a church, on or near the beach somewhere, at the burial ceremony of Archer's boss. Guess they didn't do an autopsy or anything, because he obviously died of a heart attack because like for ages he was going round with a red face painfully clutching his chest and wheezing so, hey, only a matter of time really. The ceremony is under way and Castor-As-Archer is in the church with Eve. She persuaded Jamie, their daughter (remember her? Rebellious, angst-filled teenager) not to come in order to keep her out of harm's way. Probably not a difficult decision on the daughter's part. Kick around with your friends, catching some rays and flirting with boys, or go and bury your father's dead boss. Oh, the agony of choice. Anyway, she'll be all right. Far away from the action, safe and sound with nary a care in the world, we can be sure of that. Oh no, she won't get involved at all or be put into a life-threatening situation. Nope.
Then Archer-As-Castor approaches the church. He moves in a lackadaisical sort of way, kind of reserved, tentative, slow and thoughtful. Ponderous almost. Moving slowly. As if in slow motion.
Just in case you thought you might be in say, a Bruckheimer movie, we finally get John Woo's third trademark, pigeons scattering and flying about. In slow motion. Glad to see that, although he left it a bit late. Probably couldn't fit them in previous scenes, whereas all churchgoers know they're generally quite prolific inside most houses of God. But only the white ones. Or are they doves? After the ceremony, all the extras have departed leaving our two leads plus Eve, Sasha the girlfriend and a couple of henchmen all pointing guns at each other. Yes, that's right, each with arm outstretched. Eve is in the middle of all this but she and Archer-As-Castor manage to communicate a complex plan of manoeuvres by looking at each other and then looking down. That's their years of incredibly close and loving marriage probably. Makes you telepathic. Need I point out that several of these people have two guns?
[img]http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/9144/slowdoves2ee.jpg[/img]
Oh
Yes, I started that sentence intent on describing the final gun battle and that's all I could think of. I'll try again.
Oh, for heaven's sake! When the dear-departed Douglas Adams wrote "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" he described a spaceship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive. It appears that this movie works under the same principle. There is a blizzard of gunfire, some of it in such extreme slow motion you actually see the bullets leaving the barrels! So when the smoke clears we see Archer-As-Castor and Eve are OK, the two henchmen are dead, Castor-As-Archer is OK but Sasha is breathing her last death-scene breaths, imploring Archer-As-Castor to look after their son before going to the great wrap party in the sky. At this point the viewer leans over and taps the dial on his Surprise-O-Meter™ to check it is actually working.
There follows a lot more running ahead of the stream of bullets, done by both Cage and Travolta and some outrageously dumb stunts. Cage actually uses some Woo Pigeons to distract Travolta in a totally believable way. Missed out the "un" there, must remember to check this over before I post it. Hey, waddya know, the daughter turns up! Brought there on Castor-As-Archer's orders because it, uh… she… well, because… ummmm… hey, check out those explosions!
They both grab speed boats and chase each other and Archer-As-Castor nearly gets it but recovers and, well, I think we could all write this ourselves, so let's skip the obvious bits shall we?
The End
OK, OK, we won't skip all the obvious bits. Just the really obvious bits. Which still doesn't leave very much, but that's no bad thing. So there's the final face-off. Stop it, I'm killing myself! This movie is quite amazing actually in how it lowers the bar with each successive scene to the extent that you really believe it couldn't get worse, but then it does. Surely we should give credit to these people, as no ordinary mortal could think of a way to be significantly dumber with each passing moment, it must have been a titanic effort. And each time I come to describe something dumb in this film I am progressively lost for words because I've already used them up on previous scenes. Normal films have a limited number of dumb elements, so you can really go to town on them and enjoy it, whereas here it's a war of attrition against my vocabulary. I'm going to have to consult a thesaurus if I'm to continue, or invent my own language, especially as the next dumb scene is by no means the last. I've already grossly overused the words idiocy, lunacy, demented, dumb, contrived, incredible and pollux, which I think gives some flavour of my impressions of this film. In fact, I should have just written that and saved you all a lot of time and bother.
So, in our final moments Archer-As-Castor has a spear gun pointed at Castor-As-Archer. He presses the trigger but just at that moment Castor-As-Archer grabs it and prevents the thing from firing, as long as he holds on. So here we are again in a scriptwriter's "what would you do now?" moment. Normal people would move the spear gun so it no longer points at them and then release it. But no! Castor-As-Archer takes a piece of glass and starts slicing his own face! Because he knows he's going to die and wants to prevent Archer-As-Castor from getting his own face back. Probably. What does Archer-As-Castor do while this is going on? Why, keep pressing the trigger of course. Then, while his face is being sliced to salami before his eyes he eventually acts and kicks Castor-As-Archer in the pollux and the gun is released and Castor-As-Archer is impaled. Archer-As-Castor screams at him "Die!!!!!" Took the words right out of my mouth old chum!
So, we have a Tearful Exposition Hospital Gurney scene and wouldn't you know it, they can fix him back exactly like he was before. Hooray! You have to ignore that crashing sound in the background at this point, it's just an enormous Deus Ex Machina collapsing under its own weight. So all that stuff about the only man who could do it being dead and his entire laboratory being destroyed was…well, what…rubbish? Made up? A joke? Inconvenient? I don't know. I just know we've only got four minutes left which is our wrap-up coda and lordy, is it a beaut!
So it's obviously Much Later, OK? Eve is at home working on her laptop when she sees Familiar Shadow on the window curtains approaching the back door. Slowly, yes. Slowly he approaches the back door. She runs to the door and opens it. Nothing! Was it a dream? Was it her husband? Did the operation succeed? We are on tender hooks and that snoring sound is just the hook swinging tenderly, honest. Then, sloooooooowwwwwwly in slow slow motion appears… Archer! As Archer, perfect in every detail, if you can call John Travolta's appearance perfect, but you know what I mean. It worked! Phew! But hang on a sec, how does this scene work?
Archer: I'm just going into hospital now darling to have these bullet holes, deep cuts and abrasions fixed as well as my face replaced and my body fat put back on so I look like I did before.
Eve: OK hon. Well, see ya!
Archer: See ya. I'll let myself in then when it's all over shall I?
Eve: Could you? I've got all this stuff to do on my computer you see. You got the key still?
I should point out that Travolta's reveal in this scene is done in such extreme slow motion that it genuinely looks as though it freeze-framed. I can imagine John Travolta watching this in the rushes (rushes! The irony!) and thinking "My Gaaad! Why is he lingering so long on my gigantic face?" For that face is wearing the most <invent word here> expression I've ever seen. There is no language yet devised by man to adequately describe the doofusity of his expression.
But it gets better! (better being worse, in the Woo Universe!). Jamie, the rebellious, angst-filled teenager appears and calls out "Dad?" and Lo! She is transformed! She is now a virginal all-American clean-cut prom queen, never-been-kissed, Just Say No, sensibly-dressed Silver Ring Thing teen. Hurrah! She conforms! She has renounced all those crazy ideas about individualism, self-expression and identity! We can sleep safer in our beds. No-one ever made it by being different my lass, and don't you forget it. And oh groan! Archer does that crap fingers down the face thing. Oh, it's all so loving. My Vom-O-Meter™ overfloweth.
[img]http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/4126/fingerstoke9mv.jpg[/img]
Wait, it gets worse! Or better, I don't know anymore. It's like an orgy of last-minute dreadfulness where they just unceasingly pile on dollop after dollop of excrement. Where do they get it all from? Just when you thought it would end, one final shovelful sails into view. Archer says to wife and daughter, "I've got something I've got to ask both of you" and he goes out and beckons and Castor's son appears! You know, the lunatic standing like a Christmas tree in the fire fight. "This is Adam," he says. "he needs a place to live."
Whaaaaaaa?
Archer: Hey, I found this boy. Can we keep him hon? Can we? Pleeeeease!
Eve: But who is he?
Archer: He's the illegitimate spawn of our son's murderer. And hey, he even looks like Mikey did when he was killed, isn't that neat?
Eve: Aw, you big softie. Go on then.
Even the most brain-dead viewer of this movie has heard of adoption agencies and has an inkling of the long and tortuous processes they have to deal with, so I am totally defeated when trying to imagine how John Woo expected his viewers to swallow this one.
Jamie, their daughter, is thrilled though. She bends down and says "Hi, my name's Jamie" and then she does that fingers down the face thing on him!!! [Reviewer stands bolt upright in shock and slowly backs away, back to the cabin where reader is poring over text. "You're gonna need a bigger Vom-O-Meter"]
"Why don't you show Adam his new room" asks Archer to his daughter.
"Come on," she says, and leads the child away. So we don't get to hear her say, "It's full of my dead brother's crap, but you can have it all I guess."
Music swells, as does my stomach, Archer and Eve clasp and credits roll.
The End.
Or is it?
Gratuitously Derivative Afterthoughts Section
I have actually missed out on commenting on a number of chunks of stupidity from this film but as I said before, the effort exhausts me.
I had a look at John Woo at imdb and learned a few things. In the trivia sections of his films his director's trademark is often mentioned, so I collected them all. They are:
Mexican stand-off
Unusual hand-to-hand weapons
Two guns
Reflection
Slow motion
Hospital
Doves
Ah, so they were doves, not pigeons.
And I thought there were only three! Quite a lot really. Can "hospital" be a director's trademark? I guess he won't be making any submarine movies then. Anyway, I just wonder at what point a director's trademarks stops being trademarks and start to become, well, lack of originality.
I have learned that it's called a "Mexican stand-off" though. Sorry for not knowing that. A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that "the Mexican standoff is usually portrayed as two or more opposing men with guns drawn and ready, creating a very tense situation." Might have to edit the last bit of that. However, we are gratified to learn that all of these trademarks appear in Face/Off. I'm counting Nicolas Cage's bird-fu near the end as "unusual hand-to-hand weapons."
The viewers comments at imdb are pretty much universal in their effusive praise for this masterpiece. I know these comments are sometimes a gold-mine of mangled syntax, bizarre opinions and wacky, simplistic, poorly-written confused ideas and as such can be quite fun to read, but pages and pages of "AWSOME!" and "Best Action Movie EVER!" and "Difficult to follow but worth the effort" just made me depressed. The Memorable Quotes section however is just plain bizarre; they've simply taken random sections of dialogue. For example:
Castor Troy: Sasha, what the *f--- *... are you doing here?
Burke Hicks: Don't you remember the little people?
Castor Troy: Ha HA HA HA HA Ha!
Jamie Archer: Please tell me what planet I'm on!
Can these really be Memorable Quotes???
The credit for the screenplay goes to Mike Werb and Michael Colleary. They've worked together before and since on such gems as Darkman III and Lara Croft. Impressive huh? They are currently (March 2006) working on something called Tekken. I almost care.
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Gristle McThornbody
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Germany
186 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2006 : 8:53:52 PM
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Great review of a monumentally stupid movie, Thinman.
"Hi, I'm Bob Evil!" |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2006 : 06:21:41 AM
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I was surprised to see this thing get good reviews when it first came out. The premise looked utterly ridiculous. Then I saw bits and pieces of it on HBO... and I thought it was even more ridiculous.
Thanks much, Thinman. I'm with Gristle: great, well-deserved, and long overdue review of an incredibly stupid movie. |
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tam1MI
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
558 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2006 : 01:20:47 AM
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| Your review brings me back to when I actually got this stinker on video and saw it. Oh, God, the horror... the horror... |
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Highly Derivative Review of Face/Off
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