Swordfish

Though never quite as deathly-dull as recent precursors in the ‘cyber-thriller’ genre (Johnny Mnemonic), Swordfish is too insubstantial to leave any lasting imprint on the memory, and lacks any of the imagination and flair of The Matrix.

If nothing else, Swordfish could at least be said to arrest the downward career slide of John Travolta (last seen in the extended Scientology ad Battlefield Earth, from which the only way is up.) He plays Gabriel, a mysterious spy who exists in a world beneath cyberspace, and needs to enlist a superhacker in order to access this world (and, more importantly, billions of dollars in illegal government funds).

Hugh Jackman (a refugee from US box-offices smash The X-Men) and Berry (likewise) round off the cast – the former plays Stanley Jobson, a divorced penniless loser hired by Travolta as an ace hacker to suss out the world’s trickiest security systems (and in the process re-unite with his estranged daughter). Berry, obviously, is the femme-fatale who accompanies Jackman’s serious-faced everyman en route and may or may not be in league with Gabriel, while Don Cheadle goes through the motions in an under-written role as an FBI investigator.

Travolta never has cut it as a convincing Bad Guy (with the exception of Face/Off, in which he was really the good guy, if you think carefully about it) – and Jackman’s hero is never engaging enough to invite any serious concern about his eventual fate. Berry’s entire purpose in the exercise is to lure in those stray teenage boys, and while the closing payoff is effective enough, one would have to seriously question whether it’s worth the wait.