SWORDFISH

With Gone in 60 Seconds, Dominic Sena made an overwrought, self-satisfied movie about car theft. Less than a year later he’s back with an overwrought, self-satisfied movie about computer hacking. Both films share the same stylized palette (lots of greens, oranges, and blues) and a puerile obsession with seeing as many vehicles destroyed in 100 minutes as possible. Gabriel Shear (John Travolta, in his worse hairdo since Battlefield Earth, and still not aware that he’s incapable of playing bad guys) is a bad guy. He hires renowned hacker Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) to steal him $6 billion in unused government cash. Why would a good guy like Stan take on such dirty work? He wants to get his daughter back from his whorish ex-wife, of course. Duh.

Tons of techno-babble ensues, peppered with exploding machinery (and people), bumbling feds, an airborne bus, and a rocket launcher. Halle Berry is Ginger, a vixen who is or isn’t in cahoots with the bad guys. She looks primed to take Stan for that obligatory tumble in the sheets, but it doesn’t happen. All we get is a flash of her tits (“THANK YOU!” ejaculated one repressed audience dude). Who needs sex when violence is this fetishized?

— Mike Miliard