Movie Reviews

Why do computers in movies always make those 60's-era clicks and beeps when they're being "hacked"? And how come those top-of-the-line uber-powerful supercomputers -- like the kind that John Travolta's evil character has in Swordfish -- never have a mouse hooked up, instead relying only the keyboard as an interface?

Alas, those pressing questions went unanswered here. Unfortunately for the movie, they tended to be more interesting to me than the story or the characters. Swordfish stars Hugh Jackman as Stanley Jobson, an ex-hacker with a criminal record, who is forbidden by court-order to touch a computer. He lives in a run-down trailer out in the middle of some desert, works on an oil-rig (or something), and wishes that he could spend time with his daughter. His daughter lives with his ex-wife, who has married a porno director, has apparently become something of an alcoholic, and refuses to allow Stanley any visitation rights. Stanely would do anything to try to be with his daughter again, even if it means accepting Gabriel Shear's (Travolta) request that he complete a very dangerous hacking job ('cuz despite his criminal record, Stanley's a really nice guy, dammit!).

Halle Berry plays Ginger, an 'employee' of Gabriel's. Berry was apparently paid a very heft sum of money to appear topless in this film, and it's pretty understandable why she would've demanded to be paid so much: Swordfish has one of the most gratuitous boobage shots that I've seen in a long time.

Anyway, I won't bother explaining much more the story, because not much really happened, and what did happen was not very interesting. The ending was pretty cheesy in the way it tried to offer an 'explanation' of Gabriel's motives, but this explanation seemed more unbelievable than what had already occured throughout the film.

I also won't bother knocking the lame Matrix rip-off scene. Nor will I complain too much about the scene in which a car racing at full-speed through an intersection full of heavy cross-traffic manages to just barely avoid getting hit, while all of the cars in pursuit of the first car are either smashed, or blocked from pursuing any further (actually, maybe I will complain a little bit, but only because this very situation happend two freakin' times!).

Swordfish is far from a terrible movie -- and Hugh Jackman's a really cool actor -- but it's probably not worth your time to watch it.