Walk into this expecting subtlety and you're in trouble. Walk into this expecting cheesy, retarded fun and you'll be just fine.

See, this film does something quite extraordinary. It takes an absolutely ridiculous gimmick, seemingly created just to have an absurd action packed impersonation contest and it makes it work.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the script, because it is just really poor. It is overlong, has some cringe worthy dialogue and is riddled with annoying static in the narrative. It works because of Woo, Travolta and Cage.

Travolta and Cage clearly understand the power of 'having a good time'. They embrace Face/Off's insane premise with admirable passion and enthusiasm. And as silly as it all is, I…

My face itches...

If there was ever to be a single film that encapsulates that superficial, machismo-laden, frat-boy popcorn flick that seemed to pervade the last half of the '90s, Face/Off gets my vote as its ambassador. Along with Independence Day, the first Mission: Impossible, and countless others, a new style of blockbuster had emerged - hyper-stylized, overly-polished, and seemingly allergic to any rational thought among the characters that populate them. Underneath it all, there was a sense of almost-invincible optimism running through pre-9/11 Hollywood. The action/exploitation flicks of the late '70s and '80s were buffed to a near-blinding sheen, and while they added nothing to the idea of cinema as art, by god, but weren't they a blast.

If…

I'm not sure what this says about the state of movies these days, but I laughed more during Face/Off than I have in any comedy in the last two years. This laughter is in no way a slight against this classic face switching film. Sure there are times when I am laughing at the movie, the obvious stunt wires and stunt doubles really get me, but most of the time I am laughing with the film.

Just the fact that this movie exists, makes being alive pretty much wonderful. I want to go to the rooftops and shout, FACE/OFF IS A REAL MOVIE, HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY. In a discussion with a friend about the upcoming summer of movies, he…

June Challenge List - Also my 800th Film Added to Letterboxd and 250th Added to Diary!

When DirkH in his review said "walk into this expecting subtlety and you're in trouble. Walk into this expecting cheesy, retarded fun and you'll be just fine", I knew this was going to be a fresh treat for me.

Face/Off is a perfect example of what is wrong with modern action movies, in that it provides a direct contrast to everything that the new films do nowadays. When was the last time that you saw a big, fun, cheesy action movie that didn't take itself seriously at allcome out in cinemas? Fast & Furious 6? That shifted tone far too often to be consistently cheesy.…

This a review I wrote for my new blog on Nicolas Cage called "Caged Cinema"

When I started this blog I wasn’t quite sure with what film I’d want to kick off my reviews of the films of Nicolas Cage. For one reason: his filmography is quite vast; clocking almost 70 films (and more to come). Also, the huge differences between some of his films (in quality and in tone/genre/style) make it hard to choose a good “entry-level” film that exemplifies the qualities of Nicolas Cage. Eventually, though, my eyes lay on John Woo’s Face/Off: A film that perfectly introduces the screen presence of Cage.

Please bear with me with the following description of the film’s plot, because it’s going…

Ok lets get the film Critique out the way so we can focus on the main man here, Nicholas Cage.

The film is awful, it seems to get better toward the end but 'better' still in't anywhere near good. The opening 15 minutes is some of the funniest scip* I have ever seen though. The sentimental aspect of the film is horrible, badly presented and just out of place in what is really a Cage showcase. Travolta is disappointing, even for Travolta so that says something and I'm quite sad he is in the film at all, because if he wasn't Cage would have had more of 'Caster Troy's lines, which would have been hilarious! The writing is laughable (thankfully)…

June Challenge List - Also my 800th Film Added to Letterboxd and 250th Added to Diary!

When DirkH in his review said "walk into this expecting subtlety and you're in trouble. Walk into this expecting cheesy, retarded fun and you'll be just fine", I knew this was going to be a fresh treat for me.

Face/Off is a perfect example of what is wrong with modern action movies, in that it provides a direct contrast to everything that the new films do nowadays. When was the last time that you saw a big, fun, cheesy action movie that didn't take itself seriously at allcome out in cinemas? Fast & Furious 6? That shifted tone far too often to be consistently cheesy.…

This was director John Woo's first fully controlled American action movie. It stars John Travolta as Archer, a dedicated family man and FBI agent, and Nicholas Cage as Castor, a psycotic criminal.

Archer and Castor have run into each other numerous times and are sworn enemies, but when a sting operation is able to bring Castor into jail, Archer undergoes a revolutionary new face transplant operation in which Castor's facial skin is removed and asserted on Archer's so he can go undercover and shut down his criminal operations once and for all. However once Castor awakens in the lab, he forces the programme leaders to give him Archer's face before killing him, destryoying the lab and leaving to take Archer's…