Swordfish: Acceso autorizado

Last night I watched swordfish for the third time. The first two times I thought of it as a good action film and would have easily given it 8/10. Now, a year later, I have seen more films and expect much more from them.

One problem with Swordfish is that that there isn't really enough action in it for an Action film and it isn't thrilling enough to be a thriller. The film opens with a bank robbery. We see a beautiful explosion in Bullet Time (it may look great, but it says The Matrix all over it). After that there's a short car chase and a poorly directed scene of people running/falling down a steep hill. Then we see that bank robbery from the beginning again, but this time the full-length thing and that's all the action I can remember.

Between the action sequences there is nothing very entertaining. The story starts off quite simple. A man with no money is hired to hack into some Bank. But then things become extremely complicated as we find out that the people who he is working with aren't who they say they are. Then we find out that maybe they are who they say they are and so on. By the end I don't really know or care anymore.

Most of the characters were pretty stereotypical. Hugh Jackman plays the same character he did in X-Men, but without the claws. Halle Berry plays the same character she did in Die Another Day, but this time she takes off her top and John Travolta plays the kind of bad guy who can't stop talking. So basically he's the same as he was in Battlefield Earth, but slightly more intelligent. Don Cheadle plays a rather friendly FBI agent and is probably the most interesting character.

The Music in the Film is quite interesting. It's not your usual action movie music that you don't even realize is there. It's different because of the choice of instruments that are used and it reminded me of the Computer game Mafia. Which, by the way, is a great game.

The color of this film is orange. Every scene set during the day has orange sunlight. It looks nice. But it's too much of a good thing and becomes irritating after a while.

Overall, I think this film deserves 6 or 7 out of 10. It gains points for the Bullet Time explosion even though it is unoriginal. But looses points for being too complicated and lacking entertainment between the major action scenes. It is not a must see. But watch it if it's on TV and you've nothing better to do.

This movie can be summed up as: lots of very cool action scenes (fans of both bullet time and explosions will really enjoy this), a lot of style, and a standard implausible plot. This movie is very entertaining if you like non-stop action in a cool high-tech environment.

The ingredients are pretty standard. There's a stylish kick-ass villain (Travolta) with a plan, being a high-tech bank robbery. This is all garnished with lots of weapons, technology, car chases and beautiful women. This movie really delivers on the action front, I don't think there's any 'quiet' scene that lasts more than 2 minutes. It also contains the now standard implausible hacking scenes, where getting into the computer system of a bank involves solving a kind of Rubik's cube on your computer screen. I hope you're not offended by product placement because a certain computer brand is quite prominent when IT hardware is involved in this movie. But it's by far not as obnoxious as in "I, Robot".

The filming is top-notch, unlike some other movies you can actually see what's happening in the action scenes (which is sometimes due to the amazing slow-down effects in some scenes). Unfortunately the entire plot becomes quite thin when the movie is stripped of all this action and style. However, it works. The ending is rather vague, as if room was left for a sequel without making it too painful if there wouldn't be one after all.

Overall I would say this is a pretty OK movie, but don't expect the best cinema ever.

I think people have been a little to harsh on this movie. No it is not revelatory but it is a nice glossy diversion. The all-star cast, especially Hugh Jackman, is more than competent though they aren't really challenged. There are enough special effects and stunts intermixed with a fairly compelling narrative (it is not confusing if you just pay attention) to make the film more than worthwhile. Overall good entertainment, 7/10.

What is the highest pressure job interview you've ever had?

Well, Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) a convicted Hacker, fresh out of prison and desperate to see his daughter again, can beat you, i'll bet on it. He has to hack into the FBI Computers in a fairly public place, with a gun to his head and a beautiful woman performing an act of Felacio on him, and he has just one minute to do it. (A Great Scene, Not Explict, just cool)

Anyway, he is recruited by John Travolta to hack into a dormant DEA Fund worth 9.5 Billion Dollars to finance his terrorist activities.

Full of Slick Dialogue, cool Direction and the simply gorgeous Halle Berry, this turns out to be a very enjoyable Thriller, with some clever twists (some of which don't quite work) but are forgivable anyway.

Not a classic, but a good film none the less. 8/10

I'm a fan of Hugh Jackman's, so I looked forward to seeing "Swordfish," which also stars another actor I like, John Travolta. The film was not produced with an eye to my demographic, so I did not like it as much as some people may have.

Travolta plays this incredibly ruthless man, someone committed to keeping the country safe from terrorists, who offers a hacker with child custody issues (Jackman) a chance to make a fortune, enabling him to hire a top attorney and get custody of his daughter. He needs the code cracked to a bank and account holding $9 billion in government money, and the money disseminated to various accounts.

The beginning of the film is fascinating - it's Travolta discussing the film Dog Day Afternoon - but alas, it's downhill from there. I'm normally not the most technically observant person when I'm watching a movie, but even I could tell that computerized images and miniatures did a lot of the work.

Hallie Berry gets to show off most of her beautiful body and there's plenty of action. Young men, I'm sure, love this film. Unfortunately I'm not a young man. And after seeing "Swordfish," I was 1 hour and 39 minutes older.