I consider John Woo to be one of the greatest action movie directors in the world,and "Face/Off" proves just that.However,the element that makes this film one of the most intense and spectacular action movies to ever come from Hollywood is the presence of two tremendously talented actors,both of whom are my favorites.Yes,when you have John Travolta and Nicholas Cage together in a movie ,the results are bound to be over the top. John Travolta plays Sean Archer,a dedicated FBI agent who survived a murder attempt by notorious criminal Castor Troy six years ago. However,tragically his son died instead of him and since than Archer is relentlessly chasing Troy.Nicholas Cage plays Troy,and the film begins with a spectacular chase where we see the sheer intensity generated by both these great actors,and you realize that this is not going to be just another action flick. Troy escapes,but his younger brother Pollux Troy(played by Alessandro Nivola) falls into Archer's hands,along with a floppy that contains the blueprint for a bomb to be detonated in downtown L.A. Pollux refuses to reveal the location of the bomb and then a desperate Archer is given an option that is so spine-chilling that Archer refuses immediately.Realizing soon that he has no other choice,he decides to do what he is asked to-to exchange his face for Troy's, and what's more,to alter his entire physical attributes,so that he can go to the prison where his brother is being kept,and fool him into believing that he is Troy and get the location of the bomb from him.The plan seems to work until the moment Castor realizes what has happened,puts on Archer's face,and sets out for revenge.He fools the FBI,fools Archer's wife and sleeps with her and just when one thinks that this is too much,the real Archer escapes prison and it's payback time. Both Travolta and Cage play their roles perfectly,and they do a fantastic job playing each other too. The rest of the cast simply fades away in comparison,and who cares ? Dominique Swain as Archer's rebellious daughter looks good on screen-but that's about it.Joan Allen as his wife is not too impressive either.Gina Gershon as Troy's lover seems much more real in comparison.John Woo provides the film with a novel and flawless script,and some of the best action sequences ever filmed.This film is an absolute must for any action fan,and definitely the best Woo ever made.
聲明:老生找的,自己不會寫.
再來壹篇:
This magnificent thriller represents director John Woo's triumphant return to the kind of hyperkinetic, emotionally charged film-making which made him such a hot property in the first place. Following the artistic bankruptcy of his first two Hollywood projects, this one is a marriage of high-octane movie-making and mind-twisting narrative complexities. It's also one of the few American action movies which manages to strike a balance between crowd-pleasing set-pieces and domestic interludes, and renders them equally important. John Travolta and Nicolas Cage are perfectly matched as hero/villain (and vice versa!), whilst heavyweight theatre actress Joan Allen provides the narrative with much of its dramatic backbone in the role of Travolta's wife (the scene in which she is first confronted with her husband in Cage's body is almost identical to a similar scene in Terence Fisher's FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED [1969]).
Technically, the film is a blast, and Woo stages the action highlights with a visual grace and dexterity that is often breathtaking to behold. The climactic speedboat battle is probably the finest set-piece of Woo's career to date, and the script is overflowing with visual and thematic ironies that underscore the action highlights. In fact, the production has arguably more dramatic resonance than any other Hollywood blockbuster of the 1990s, but the dictates of American commercialism mean that Woo is only able to skate over the emotional surface of his characters and their moral dilemmas. The two main protagonists are much too cold and heartless to fully engage the audience's sympathies, and there's nothing here that matches the scorching human drama of, say, BULLET IN THE HEAD (1990). But for all that, FACE/OFF dares to go deeper than your average Hollywood action picture. It's clever, witty and thrilling, and it manages to accomplish the difficult task of feeding the brain whilst entertaining the eye.
還有壹篇:
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
The first time I saw this movie I thought to myself "hey, this is pretty exciting." After the first fight scene it quickly dawned on me, however that the action in this movie is all the same and none of it makes any sense (like every John Woo movie). First of all, lets examine the movie's main premise. Taking a face from one person and grafting it on another will not make them look exactly like them: there's their entire facial structure underneath to consider. The movie tries to briefly explain this and their two very different body types but it's very sketchy. Also, apparently medical science has progressed past scarring and major surgery patients can drive themselves home from the hospital the very same day.
Then there's the action. There are like three scenes where bad-John Travolta is in a 20 x 20 room with good-Nicholas Cage and both fail to shoot the other even with automatic weapons, yet John can kill 4 cops while simultaneously driving a high-speed boat. I understand that the good guy has to make it to the end, but the shootouts are so poorly coordinated that it's hard to believe a cross-eyed kid in a wheelchair could have fired as much as our two stars and failed to hit someone, especially when the squibs go off directly behind the person being shot at. The end seals the ridiculous deal: after missing with about 1000 gun shots, good-Cage finally finishes off his foe with the second of 2 harpoon guns that happened to be on a private leisure boat(why?), but only after John exerts about 500lbs of force with his hand on the gun's springs and staves off death for another few seconds. In conclusion, this movie is a bunch of cliché action that is too ludicrous to be entertaining. Don't waste your time with this or any other John Woo movie unless you enjoy seeing people not get shot and plenty of doves flying.