Face Off

 


 

Surprisingly exceeding expectations (2)

John Travolta is Sean Archer, an FBI agent, and Nicolas Cage is Castor, a terrorist who tried to kill Archer but hit his little son instead, and now, along with his brother Pollux (the inseparable twins in Greek mythology), he sets off a bomb that could wreak havoc in Los Angeles. Pollux and Castor are captured, and in order to find out where the bomb is, Archer has to physically become Castor, but Castor manages to escape, transforming himself into Archer, and the plot thickens ...

In my opinion, this Movie falls short in two major points – the action and the humanity. The violence is excessive and the amount of bullets flying and not hitting anyone is really amazing. The human aspect could have been developed a little further, such as when Castor, disguised as Archer, says a few pointed words to Archer's teenage daughter and even saves her from an overeager and violent suitor, or when Archer, disguised as Castor, meets Castor's girlfriend and finds out that he has a son, very similar to his son who was murdered, and even ends up deciding to adopt him, or the scenes where they each learn to live in their new identities until they come to the conclusion that they would like to resume their real identities as soon as possible. Folks, a little more humanity and a little less violence!

There are many movies about twins, usually one "good" and one "bad", where the evil twin tries to kill the good and take over his identity, and it's not always clear which one is the survivor. While there are no twins here, there is an exchange of identities, and because the whole surgical face replacement thing seemed totally far fetched (once maybe, but twice? And without a single scratch?) Maybe it would have been more interesting to see "Archer" remain with the face new face and the new identity? His loving wife would have learned to live with it, wouldn't she?

It was nice to see Travolta try to imitate Cage's madness and Cage restraining himself to embrace Travolta's calmness. Cage is excellent, but Travolta already had better "Comeback" Movies.

PS they could have cut out at least fifteen minutes of this Movie. What a waste of work by the special effects and pyrotechnics people…