An action movie starring Wesley Snipes. This is nothing new. A good action
movie starring Wesley Snipes. Again, nothing new (re: Blade). Sadly, this
is no Blade. This isn't even an Enemy of the State (a better version of this movie
starring the likeable Will Smith).
The story? Something to do with the Asian economy and some sort of an economic
treaty between a couple of Asian countries. Suffice it to say, at an important
UN summit meeting, one of the important Asians is assassinated.
Wesley Snipes is a part of a hush-hush-we-don't-exist spy kinda thing within
the UN. Very few even know of his existence. Suffice it to say, he ends up
being framed for this.
The beginning of the movie starts out promising enough. There are some very
nice fight scenes (which is almost a given, seeing as Snipes is fighting Asians),
and the action moves along quite well. Then the James Bond-esque ten minutes
end and the movie gets bogged down some.
There's a lot of story to this flick, and a lot of twists and turns in the plot.
If you're going for a straight-out action movie, then forget it. This one requires
some thought amidst the blowing-up of stuff. Sadly, the actions sequences could
have used more... oh, I don't know, frequency? Too little action, for my tastes,
and the opening of the movie is misleading, too, because most of the fights in this
flick are with guns, not feet and fists. Only the last gunfight was at all interesting,
but even that stole a lot from both John Woo and The Matrix (but mostly the latter).
Here's the thing. A movie like this should be either Action or Suspense, it shouldn't
try for both. That's what Enemy of the State had going for it: It knew it was a
suspense movie, and that's what it went for. It never went for action, and if it did
then the scenes fit the movie (ie: focused on suspense over action). This movie
tries for suspense, action, and a convoluted conspiracy plot. Convoluted conspiracy
plots, though, usually only work for ONE GENRE AT A TIME.
Suffice it to say, I felt it was a bit cliched, and a bit... well, boring. The actors
all did a good job, that's true, but overall.....
Okay, then? A good waste of time if you're going to a matinee or someone's paying...
But really, you may as well just wait for the thing to come out on video or, even
better, on television.