Here's a film I really liked the first time, and was totally turned off on the second viewing as the Hollywood bias machine was in high gear again, and you can guess in what director (left or right). Anyway, two things remained the same: John Travolta as "Gabriel Shear" was riveting as an anti-terrorist terrorist. The explosion scene where people are flying sideways is awesome, particularly in the sound department if you have surround system. Oh, and yes, Halle Berry and her figure was on display in this film and quite a sight. Wowzer!

Some of this script is a takeoff on Dog Day Afternoon, which Travolta's character re-enacts a role from that famous '70s film. "Shear" talks about that movie during the film.

I almost got discouraged watching this in the first half hour because there is so much computer terminology that I was lost. However, if you find yourself in a similar spot, take heart because that that ends after that first 30 minutes and is no longer a problem.

Credibility and bias aside, it's still a fun movie for at least one viewing, with that early bomb scene most memorable.

This is one of those movies where I kept thinking "whatever I rated this back then, it couldn't possibly have been low enough"

It stars John Travolta fresh off his Battlefield Earth success, sporting a fine beer belly, the worst soul patch of the noughties (which is saying a lot) and the hair cut of every annoying techbro you ever met in school who constantly bragged about his IQ and his graphics card specs. Also starring are X-men cohorts Hugh Jackman (playing the bad boy from your favorite boy band) and Halle Berry (playing Halle Berry). They are supposed to have the hots for each other I suppose, but I think both had more chemistry with the toady guy with the long tongue in X-Men than they have here.

The story is a quagmire of meaningless tech lingo, cheap suits, silly shades, intrusive attempts at coolness and bad action. Everything is digitally color-corrected because it looked cool in the Matrix. There are club scenes with electronica, because it looked cool in the Matrix. The protagonists are stylishly dressed computer geniuses/hard boiled detective like characters because it was cool in the Matrix. It's one of the most transparent uncreative attempts to copy the formula I've seen.

What people didn't seem to get is that Matrix was a genuinely great movie, inventive and smartly constructed, and not just a cool flick where people wore long coats and black sunglasses. Funnily enough the longer this film goes the more it looks and feels like a Hackers knockoff, rather than a Matrix knockoff, which is probably not what they were going for. If only it was as entertaining as Hackers though.

The hacking is predictably hokey and cheesy of course, you know the drill: montages of someone typing really fast in a command prompt that is completely meaningless and ugly, set to big beat or house music. However the comedic value is very limited and the scenes tend to get interrupted by some of the most unremarkable action set pieces you've ever slept through. Elements from the schlockfest Mission Impossible 2 keep inexplicably creeping in (minus Cruise's splendid haircut), because noone involved had any idea what they were doing and you have a lot of time to start wondering what you're even doing with your life and that inventing movies might have been a mistake in the first place.

After meandering thusly for quite a while Swordfish eventually goes back to aping Matrix visuals again, but at this point I was so bored not even the silly glasses and attires did elicit a tiny chuckle.

I'll give Swordfish one teensy bit of credit though: the opening scene of Travolta's allegedly badass deeply pretentious monologue, that was supposed to be an intense truth-bomb moment, was grade-A comedic gold. After that it is all downhill as far as the entertainment value goes. They should have let him go ham on the hamminess. Imagine the Travolta from face/off or Broken Arrow in this one and you immediately get a better film.

Apart from being a bad knockoff this is seriously one of the worst action movies of its time and it aged about as gracefully as an open yogurt you forgot in your old fridge. It falls flat on every level. Whereas Equilibrium got unfairly lambasted I think critics and audiences alike should have been much more cruel with Swordfish. I'm assuming the relatively respectable imdb score is due to noone having watched this in the last 20 years and rating it on hazy memories of it being ok.

I wonder how this film would had mapped out if it was released after 9/11 rather then several months before it?

Hugh Jackman is a computer hacker who wants access to his daughter but his porn star wife will not allow him access. I presume being a hacker is worse than appearing in porn films.

John Travolta plays a ruthless criminal with an intelligence background who wants him to hack into a government bank and steal billions of dollars locked in by the DEA.

During all too yellow scenes (not sure why there was so much yellow filter) we have car chases, dodgy politicians, explosions, pyrotechnics and Halle Berry's boobs which are more preferable to Travolta's.

Jackman tries to keep up with all the cat and mouse play and Don Cheadle is the FBI agent rather flummoxed as to what is going on.

John Travolta plays Gabriel a film freak who is obsessed with keeping terrorism out of America. He wants to combat force with even more force. Something Donald Rumsfeld might had approved of.

Gabriel comes across as an ethically bankrupt man, in an amoral story where we are supposed to root for a dubious good guy who wants to cause havoc against people and nations he views as villains.

When in the early part of the movie we see another computer hacker taken out by a hit-man who also shoots his lawyer for some reason, you know this film is going to have a suspect morality.