SWORDFISH

A head of a terrorist organization named Gabriel Shear(John Travolta), hires an ex criminal hacker who's trying to stay clean named Stanley (Hugh Jackman) to steal billions of US Government money. On the team with them is a woman named Ginger (Halle Berry) who's a DEA agent undercover. Agent J.T. Roberts (Don Cheadle) is after Gabe and is willing to help his foe Stanley on getting life back together if he helps him.

Our main character played by Hugh Jackman is a good character and has good development throughout the film.Yes, he is doing something extremely illegal and seems to be enjoying it towards the middle of the film, but the character redeems himself and slowly becomes from being an anti hero to a legit hero. As much as I praise the character, Hugh Jackmans acting stunk. I don't know why, I mean we all know him best as Wolverine in the "X Men" and does a fine and heroic job playing him, but here I felt like he didn't care too much about the character or the film. The only scenes I enjoy him in is when he's with his daughter because he can no longer see her do to divorce and his time in jail and I can see Hugh Jackman at least trying to make those scenes touching. Oh and as for the wife, we see her very little and the porn director she married is someone we never see at all.By the way his hacking scenes are well directed and the music that plays in one scene is a somewhat what kickass song.

Halle Berry, I hate to say this but along with "The Flintstones Movie" and "Catwoman", this is another one of her worst roles in film. It's not just her bland acting in this film but her character is so pointless, does so little in the story that you don't need her at all. I think all the director was focusing on with her is her sexy beauty. It felt like he wanted to throw a sexy undeveloped female character in so she can just look sexy and turn the men in the audience on. Believe it or not this is Halle Berry's first time being topless in a film and she is reunited with Hugh Jackman again after doing the first "X Men" film.  Coincidence or was this clever bate for the people who enjoyed "X Men" to see her and Hugh Jackman on screen again?

Don Cheadle as the agent, well how do I put it...his performance is as bland as Jackman and Berry's. There's nothing interesting or good about his acting or the character in this movie. Now, he does play a big part in the film that's bigger than Halle Berry's character at least, so I can't say he's a useless character. With that said, he's still nothing special in this film.

John Travolta as the villain, come on his performance and character has got to be the one to save the film. I love how he thinks, I love how he plans and I love how he kills people. My favorite scenes of his character is his opening dialogue about "Dog Day Afternoon" and how he times Hugh Jackman to hack a code in 60 seconds while one of his henchmen holds a gun against his head and has a girl give him a BJ. This is one well written villain and having John Travolta playing him sounds epic but I'm in great disappointment because his acting and performance is bland.

So the performances stink while our hero and villain are well written. Does the action save the film. I really don't know to be honest, the car chases weren't keeping me on the edge of my seat, the CGI for most of the action scenes look unimpressive(Although the bus dangling from the helicopter is cool) and I can't help but feel like I've seen most of these action scenes before. As I watch the film, I feel like they're ripping scenes or ideas from movies such as "The Matrix", the OO7 films,"Dog Day Afternoon","Speed" and even the crappy sequel "Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World". Is it probably paying homage to films like  what "Star Wars" and "Pulp Fiction" did, I don't know but if that's the case they're doing a poor job doing it. At least the movie references in those films were paying homage to film scenes while at the same time kept their scenes original, this film mostly feels like a copy and paste of various action scenes.

"Swordfish" is not well acted, some of the characters are bland or pointless, the action is mostly anti climatic and you can almost swear you've seen most of these scenes and shots before. I will admit it's a very entertaining movie but overall it's just not that good.

RATING 3/5