Universally reviled action movie which might well have the stupidest plot in history (and not deliberately so, either). It's not quite as bad as you might infer but make no mistake, it's not good. What there is is plenty of action, plenty of explosions and some girls-with-guns action. I sniggered my way quite happily through it though that isn't enough to recommend it.

>>> Plot teaser

Jeremy, though he'd probably prefer you call him Agent Ecks (and his name is revealed to actually be Jeremiah about ten minutes from the end), is coerced into tracking down a ruthless mega-kidanpper Asian babe. Because he is so brilliant he doesn't bother with detective work and instead waits for the next shootout in a mall. That'll be her but before he has a chance to put her down, he is told that she is the key to finding out what happened to his wife, killed some years earlier. Oh, did I forget that he was an agent-with-a-past?

>>> Principal cast and crew

• Producer: Chris Lee
• Director: Wych Kaosayananda
◦ Antonio Banderas: Jeremiah Ecks
◦ Lucy Liu: Sever
◦ Gregg Henry: Gant / Clark
◦ Ray Park: Ross
◦ Talisa Soto: Vinn / Rayne
◦ Miguel Sandoval: Julio Martin
◦ Terry Chen: Harry
◦ Roger R. Cross: Zane
• Producer: Elie Samaha
• Producer: Wych Kaosayananda
• Writer: Alan McElroy

>>> More comment

While this is a so-bad-it's-funny film, it is a shame that the actors are clearly taking things so seriously. The talented Banderas is adept at this sort of stuff but is wasted. He does manage to deliver a quality with a small Asian girl after the mall shootout and is generally rather good in the non-action scenes.

Lucy Liu only has a handful of lines in the whole movie (I don't know if she beats Arnie's "Terminator" word count but it must be one of the smallest starring speaking roles of all time).

The slow-motion cry of "Jeremy!" may be one of the most unintentionally hilarious lines of all time. Poor old Talisa Soto (looking great, by the way) gets to spurt this clunker.

Unlike the direct-to-video action genre, this movie does contain a lot of action sequences, some of them nearly spectacular, some of them containing some nearly cool ideas. It also provided employment for a stack-load of stuntmen and woman. Unfortunately, the director (credited appropriately as Kaos) wallies up the cool he almost creates by not keeping his action scenes in shape or inside the movie's logic.

Still, when the climax rolls around (pretty quickly it has to be said, this is a short, fast-moving, action-packed film if not good or interesting) a special roll of the eyes is reserved for the scene where Sever (Lucy Liu) and the principal henchman discard some (but, bizarrely, not all) of their weapons to face off. It is, however, topped by Liu shooting the bad guy in the gun a few minutes later (though, to be fair, she does have a good reason for doing that).

If I were told that this movie is the result of keeping all the filmed action scenes and dumping everything else, I could readily believe it. While we get director's cuts of certain films, I'd like to see alternative cuts of bad movies like this one which try to give shape and quality back.

That said, it is dopey misfires like this that help you really appreicate the brilliance of things like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or the Special Edition of "Terminator 2".

The violence in the movie is strictly bloodless (which makes no difference) but there is still a lot of violence and the BBFC certificate of 15 is earned primarily for this. There is some minor swearing.

>>> Unwritten movie rules

• Unwritten movie rule: a martial artist will always defeat an opponent or opponents armed with ballistic weaponry (in this case, guns). The greater the number of opponents, the faster and more certain the defeat.

• Unwritten movie rule: no-one armed with a ballistic weapon can shoot an unarmed martial artist until they are within arms reach. They must also feign surprise when they get their butts kicked.

• Unwritten movie rule: Everything in an action movie can explode.

• Unwritten movie rule: action heroes are not affected by being hit by cars especially if they hit the windscreen with enough force to smash it.

• Unwritten movie rule: no car windscreens in the world ever are made with laminated safety glass despite every car in the world being installed with laminated safety glass windscreens.

• Unwritten movie rule: Unless you are the hero, it is impossible to hit any running person with a ballistic weapon. This is especially true if the person is running behind glass windows.

• Unwritten movie rule: action heroes can move and perform any action completely silently at any necessary time. This is especially true on gravel or for women in hgh heels on concrete.

• Unwritten movie rule: every time a person raises a gun from hip to firing height, the gun makes the clicking ratchet sound of the hammer being pulled. This applies equally to guns without hammers.

• Unwritten movie rule: landmines can be escaped by simply running fast or, preferably, in slow motion. All those twits in Africa know nothing. All they had to do was run fast instead of flying twenty feet into the air and scattering assorted limbs.