Identities

The Island

When you add up all the best things about The Island, you might just conclude that there's hope yet for Hollywood's most critically reviled hit-maker, Michael Bay. Recruited by Steven Spielberg to direct this lavish and often breathtaking sci-fi action thriller, Bay rises to the occasion with an ambitious production that is, by his standards (and compared to Bay's earlier hits like The Rock and Armageddon), surprisingly intelligent as it explores the repercussions of cloning in a sealed-off society where humans are cultivated for spare parts, surrogate parenthood, and full-body replacements for wealthy clientele. But when two of the clones (Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johanssen) begin to question their fate and the motives of their keepers, they escape into the real world and The Island becomes just another Michael Bay action extravaganza, albeit an impressively exciting one. With elaborate chase scenes and a high-tech feast of CGI to dazzle the eye, The Island recycles much of the plot from 1979's Clonus while borrowing elements from Logan's Run, Gattaca and Minority Report, and while it's not as smartly conceived as those earlier films, there's no denying that, in many ways, it's Bay's best film to date. --Jeff Shannon

Face/Off

At his best, director John Woo turns action movies into ballets of blood and bullets grounded in character drama. Face/Off marks Woo's first American film to reach the pitched level of his best Hong Kong work (Hard-Boiled). He takes a patently absurd premise--hero and villain exchange identities by literally swapping faces in science-fiction plastic surgery--and creates a double-barreled revenge film driven by the split psyches of its newly redefined characters. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must play the villain to move through the underworld while psychotic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) becomes a perversely paternal family man while using every tool at his disposal to destroy his nemesis. Travolta vamps Cage's tics and flamboyant excess with the grace of a dancer after his transformation from cop to criminal, while Cage plays the sullen, bottled-up agent excruciatingly trapped behind the face of the man who killed his son. His attempts to live up to the terrorist's reputation become cathartic explosions of violence that both thrill and terrify him. This is merely icing on the cake for action fans, the dramatic backbone for some of the most visceral action thrills ever. Woo fills the screen with one show-stopping set piece after another, bringing a poetic grace to the action freakout with sweeping camerawork and sophisticated editing. This marriage of melodrama and mayhem ups the ante from cops-and-robbers clichés to a conflict of near-mythic levels. --Sean Axmaker

At his best, director John Woo turns action movies into ballets of blood and bullets grounded in character drama. Face/Off marks Woo's first American film to reach the pitched level of his best Hong Kong work (Hard-Boiled). He takes a patently absurd premise--hero and villain exchange identities by literally swapping faces in science-fiction plastic surgery--and creates a double-barreled revenge film driven by the split psyches of its newly redefined characters. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must play the villain to move through the underworld while psychotic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) becomes a perversely paternal family man while using every tool at his disposal to destroy his nemesis. Travolta vamps Cage's tics and flamboyant excess with the grace of a dancer after his transformation from cop to criminal, while Cage plays the sullen, bottled-up agent excruciatingly trapped behind the face of the man who killed his son. His attempts to live up to the terrorist's reputation become cathartic explosions of violence that both thrill and terrify him. This is merely icing on the cake for action fans, the dramatic backbone for some of the most visceral action thrills ever. Woo fills the screen with one show-stopping set piece after another, bringing a poetic grace to the action freakout with sweeping camerawork and sophisticated editing. This marriage of melodrama and mayhem ups the ante from cops-and-robbers clichés to a conflict of near-mythic levels. --Sean Axmaker

Superman - The Movie

Richard Donner's 1978 epic about the Man of Steel showed how a film about a superhero could be a moving and romantic experience even for people who long ago gave up comic books. Beginning on the icy planet Krypton, the story follows the baby Kal-El, whose rocket ship lands in Smallville, Kansas. He is found there by a childless couple and raised as the shy Clark Kent (the young Kent is played by Jeff East). The film is perhaps most touching in these sequences, with expanses of wheat fields blowing in the wind and with a young man who can't figure out what part in destiny his great powers are meant to play. The second half, with Reeve taking over as Clark/Superman, is bustling, enchanting (the scene in which Superman flies girlfriend Lois Lane--played by Margot Kidder--through the night sky is great date material), and funny, thanks largely to Gene Hackman's sardonic portrayal of nemesis Lex Luthor. --Tom Keogh

The One (Special Edition)

The One sets a martial arts milestone by pitting action star Jet Li against his greatest enemy: himself. This sci-fi thriller establishes a "multiverse" consisting of countless parallel universes, each populated by variants of every individual. Li plays a renegade from the Multiverse Agency, illegally traveling through "quantum tunnels" to eliminate all versions of himself until only two remain, each sharing the cumulative strength of their "parallel universe versions." This mumbo-jumbo inspires a variety of dazzling special effects, and director James Wong (with cowriter and fellow X-Files alumnus Glen Morgan) injects clever humor into the Matrix-derivative premise. Carla Gugino is wasted as the "good" Li's obligatory love interest, but The One will appeal to action fans with its fast-paced pursuit between the evil Li and two agents (Delroy Lindo, Jason Statham) assigned to stop his trans-universal killing spree. It's a one-gimmick movie, best enjoyed with your brain in neutral. --Jeff Shannon

In a stunning dual role international action star Jet Li portrays Gabriel Yulaw a police officer confronted with a sinister duplicate of himself. This evil double is an escapee from an advanced parallel universe with a mission to kill Gabriel. His alter ego's hunt culminates in a fateful battle between good and evil that changes Gabriel's perception of reality and forces him to examine the evil hidden within him.System Requirements:Starring: Jet Li Carla Gugino Delroy Lindo and Jason Statham. Directed By: James Wong. Running Time: 87 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2002 Columbia TriStar.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG-13 UPC: 043396063921 Manufacturer No: 06392

Double Impact

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 6-FEB-2001
Media Type: DVD

Jean-Claude Van Damme gets a kick out of himself in this clever if barely competent action thriller, in which the likable Muscles from Brussels plays twin brothers separated at birth by a murderous Hong Kong crime syndicate. While the genial Chad lives the posh life as a California aerobics instructor, his sibling Alex chews fat cigars back in China, running a mahjong parlor and making some extra bucks as a smuggler. A quarter-century after being sent to different corners of the globe, they reunite and decide to seek vengeance against the cartel that killed their parents. From there the story and action set pieces are fairly predictable, but that hardly matters since the film's real appeal is in the amusing way the two Van Dammes deal with sibling rivalry, especially where women are concerned. Van Damme, seeking his box-office breakthrough at the time, might have received more of a commercial boost had this movie simply been directed with greater professionalism. The lighting, editing, and shot selection are often ridiculously below the standard of low-budget features. But Double Impact does have its compensations, especially in the casting of leather-clad Cory Everson and exemplary villain Bolo Yeung as a pair of killers who cross the twins' path. --Tom Keogh

Desperado (Special Edition)

It's Sergio Leone meets Sam Peckinpah meets Quentin Tarantino in this ultraviolent, mythological shoot-'em-up by auteur Robert Rodriguez. In Desperado, Rodriguez creates larger-than-life, genre-tweaking stock characters and puts them through their paces. As they stride bravely through an Old West lightly dusted with camp humor, they're periodically called upon to nimbly dodge bullets and fireballs through outrageously choreographed displays of Hollywood pyrotechnics. In this bigger-budget semi-remake/semi-sequel to Rodriguez's indie sensation, El Mariachi (made, famously, for $7,000), Antonio Banderas is the darkly charismatic El Mariachi, the Mysterious Stranger in town; Steve Buscemi is perfectly cast as his weasely, motor-mouth Comic Sidekick, laying the groundwork for El Mariachi's entrance by spinning saloon stories to build up his legend; Cheech Marin is a standout as the Bartender, who really knows how to handle a toothpick; and gorgeous Salma Hayek is, well, the Girl--treated to the kind of full-blown, slow-mo introduction the movies traditionally lavish on beautiful new stars. It doesn't add up to much, but it's a kick. Be careful not to blow out your speakers with the DVD's Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. --Jim Emerson

A mysterious Mexican guitar player searches for vengeance against the men who murdered his girlfriend.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 5-JUL-2005
Media Type: DVD

El Mariachi (Special Edition)

All he wants is to be is a mariachi like his father his grandfather and his great grandfather before him. But the town he thinks will bring him luck brings only a curse of deadly mistaken identity. Forced to trade his guitar for a gun the mariachi is playing for his life in this critically-acclaimed film debut from director Robert Rodriguez. Financed with earnings from a month-long stay in a research hospital this astonishing action adventure was shot with no second takes using borrowed equipment and a talented cast of unknowns. The riveting result is a wild bullet-dodging ride through a world of bandido violence from the suspense of the opening shoot-out to the tragedy of the unexpected conclusion. With little more than a great story and a lot of heart Rodriguez has created pure movie pleasure setting new standards for independent filmmaking and establishing himself as an unquestionable talent. "An enormously entertaining movie." (Roger Ebert CHICAGO SUN-TIMES)System Requirements:Running Time: 81 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 043396093065 Manufacturer No: 09306

Maximum Risk

Substitute 2: School's Out

The delicate issue of student discipline becomes dangerously pointed when a vengeance-seeking mercenary (the perennially underrated Treat Williams) sews a couple of tweed patches onto the elbows of his flack jacket and proceeds to add a few chalk outlines to the blackboard jungle. Although the premise of this intermittently entertaining sequel can't match the goofy novelty of the 1996 original, it does sport a couple of effective action scenes (the teacher's demonstration of the yo-yo's history as a lethal weapon is a highlight), and a talented cast (including Broadway star B.D. Wong as a shop teacher who cares a little too much about his tools) that's fully aware of the numerous absurdities depicted herein. An occasionally effective lowbrow action flick that, at the very least, sure beats the heck out of study hall. --Andrew Wright

The Tuxedo

Jackie Chan looks spiffy in The Tuxedo, but the movie needs a tailor. No Jackie Chan movie could be a total misfire, however, and he's charmingly self-effacing here as a hapless chauffeur who inadvertently replaces his injured super-agent boss (Jason Issacs) and foils a madman (Ritchie Coster) who plans to infect the world's water supply (!) and reap a fortune selling pure bottled water. Jackie's a bumbling superhero after donning his boss's high-tech, Inspector Gadget-like tuxedo (it even has a "Mambo" setting), and curvaceous co-agent Jennifer Love Hewitt coaches him in crime fighting while closing in on the bad guys. It's all as routinely ridiculous as it sounds--Jackie's faux James Brown act is the only real highlight--and as critic Roger Ebert observed, the climax hinges on an insect queen that doesn't exist in nature! So, while Jackie and Jennifer provide a few moments of stellar stunts and random amusement, you can blame this mess on screenwriters who didn't do their homework. --Jeff Shannon