Rating: 
Summary: This film rocks!
Review: Ok, John was some weird mf in this one...and there was a lot of violence....was there some delivery here? I hope so.I think that JT had a new challenge here - and he handled it pretty well - no crime here, or anything remotely un-ethical. Lets give some prayer for the living, eh? cheers,
mike....
Rating: 
Summary: Riveting!
Review: I can't believe the reviews of this movie were so bad. This is a great action movie, with or without bare breasts. It has lots of plot twists and surprises. John Travolta was great even though they made him look ugly. Don't look away for a few seconds or you'll miss something. Even with all the action there is some plot and interesting information to think about after the movie if you are paying attention.
Rating:
Summary: I'M GLAD I WATCHED IT BEFORE READING THE REVIEWS
Review: I tend to be easily swayed by reviews so I'm glad I watched this on DVD before reading the many negative reviews of this film.
The special effects in themselves are worth price of a rental.
Mayhem is the key word in capsulating the movie. The plot has many weak points and is downright confusing at times, but the acting is excellent
The disc contains some fine extra features and is what a DVD should be.
Rating: 
Summary: An eyeful for Hugh Jackman fans, but not much else
Review: After seeing Kate & Leopold in the theatres, I rented this DVD to get more of Hugh Jackman! Well it certainly delivered, but I must admit that if I weren't a H.J. fan, I wouldn't have enjoyed it much. He's really good but Travolta just didn't deliver and Barry was slimy! The best parts were seeing Jackman in a towel hitting golf balls and trying to pass his "test" with the blond's head in his lap. The bus thing was too stupid to even believe. Given all this, I still watched it twice.
Rating: 
Summary: Blah.... yet another typical Hollywood wonder....
Review: ... as in, I wonder why this was produced. Left me with a couple of unsavory images burned into my brain. A complete waste of time!
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money. See it on cable at a friends house.
Review: Undeniably the worst film with John Travolta since he made Look Who's Talking. Not even seeing Halle Berry's nudity can make up for the one and a half hours of my life that I wasted watching this movie and I will never get back again. Another prime example of Hollywood spending more money on advertising and hype than in the actual production of a good movie. This is the future folks. Realize it and have fear. This movie looks like it was made straight out of the cookie cutter of other thrillers seen before. Five minutes into the flick and Travolta's character has already given away the ending. Nonsence cyber babble permeate the entire film in an age where lots of people know enough about computer technology to recognize the stink of baloney when they're hearing it. Throughout the film we're given the gratuitous nudity, explosions, and gun play that Hollywood thinks is necessary to draw people into the theater. I understand that in an effort to make money a movie companies tend to play to the lowest common denominator. I say that the best we can do is stay away from them in droves to show them we aren't as dumb as they think we are.
Rating: 
Summary: It understates the U.S. What is the point? (2 1/2 stars)
Review: The clashing between antitrust worlds, one man (Hugh Jackman) seeking his daughter back by doing evil, and one (John Travolta) seeking to protect the United States by sacrificing the whole U.S. if necessary, and dragging behind is Halle Berry, with a side dish of star, Don Cheadle who is out to eliminate cyber-terrorists. This is a confused, but simple premise conceived by Producer, Joel Silver, and put into action by Director, Dominic Sena. What is driving this film? ...Possibly just the password: Swordfish. It unlocks the key to some of the most deadly people in the world, and holds tight the secrets of what our government doesn't want us to get our hands on: LOTS OF MONEY. The story of this film completely turns around what our country is built on. John Travolta knows all the secrets of our world, but he needs a code-cracker, a man on the side. Because Hugh Jackman is a master of computer networking disaster, John Travolta recruits him onto his jacket of bull rags, in exchange for $10 Million and Jackman also gets his daughter back, who was taken from him by his ex-wife. Hugh is the true star of the film. What drives him is his love for his daughter. What drives Travolta is his need of dominate power over the world (and that moronic beard of his). What divides these characters is Halle Berry, who's one particular scene (when you see it you'll know what I mean) is basically the reasoning for her character even in the film at all. She pretends as though she likes both Hugh and John. You never really know who she's really working for because she is a side changing woman (or just playing hard to get). Her life is a web of conspiracy spread over both of these characters, but you never really figure her out until the end. I'm not sure if Don Cheadle makes a big difference in the film or not. He plays an investigator who is out to put an end to the malevolent hackers. Yet, if you remove him from the film, nothing is really missing. His filming probably wrapped up in a day or two because his chracter doesn't hold much ground. He's really not a supporting character, he's just there. One thing I've heard about this film is the explosions. I don't know why critics are making remarks about them. There is only one that stands out in the film, which takes place in the very beginning. It's filmed in a very futuristic, slow-moving process focusing on oozy washes of flames, breaking glass and flying people. (It's a little hard to express in words.) I expected the film to have a lot of explosions, but the only real one, in the opening sequence was far too different and strange, especially for what I was thinking it was going to be. Another action scene features Hugh Jackman and John Travolta in their beautiful car, speeding away from the mayor's agents. Travolta pulls out his powerful assault rifle and blows them all away. It is very fast and fun, somewhat original, far from realistic, but still enjoyable. The only other rock-em-sock-em action is featured in the end of the movie where we pick up from what happens in the beginning. A terrorized bus, led by Travolta, is lifted by helicopter when the police swarm the area and a city skyscraper is smashed on the face, leaving a big hole on one region of the building. It is very good, and amazingly original. I only question whether or not a helicopter could support a bus and the busload of people on it. What this film does not build on is the characters. It has an interesting plot, but it could possibly be hard to conceive. It just takes a little of computer hacker scandal, then drops it with the "little-less" than standard action technique. Joel Silver repeats his mistakes that he made with Exit Wounds. The action wasn't as furious as I would've hoped it to be. It has some originality in action scenes, but it doesn't have enough. I still question the point of the film, and many of the plot pieces. I'm still caught between the good and evil of the film. However this film may have tried to present itself, it still is a low standard action film with some originality in dramatic sequences that is meant to cover up what really lurks beneath. Travolta is still just a villain, even if his facial hair is strange. Hugh Jackman is just a good guy who tries to live a simple life by temporarily helping out the bad guys for money. Halle Berry is just a tag along who's only point for the movie is to have a topless scene so more male viewers are attracted to the picture. And Don Cheadle is that same old let loose investigator who is determined to stop the bad guys, who is unaware that the good guy on the bad side is an ally. So in reality, there is nothing new here, and it just makes a confusing plot so techno that it tries to cover up what it really is. It might work for some, but I get what it's all about. The title of the film, and the password in the movie are both about the same thing. SWORDFISH = MONEY, and there isn't much anything else to it. QUOTE: "There is some new scale scenes, and brief action sequences to feast on, but that is only "brief". Otherwise we have a nonshalance plot consisting of the everyday standard action film characters that still haven't changed in over one-hundred years. The film promotes itself with Halle Berry without a shirt on, and an opening explosion. John Travolta fails again, Hugh Jackman does well, Halle Berry loses her shirt, Don Cheadle yells and rolls down a hill, Dominic Sena's respect takes a downfall, and Producer Joel Silver keeps making the same action movie over and over and over. So what is the point of a film manipulating the United States' honor and presenting itself as boringly overdone and repeated? Swordfish has some action scenes and a worthy performance from Hugh Jackman, but nothing else comes to bare. So why should the audience even care?"
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but not overly original
Review: Swordfish tells the story of a renegade group of former U.S. government spooks and their convoluted plans to steal hundreds of millions of dollars to finance their mysterious global plans. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but it's a bit far-fetched at the very least. Hugh Jackman plays a computer hacker who just can't resist a big caper. John Travolta is the enigmatic Gabriel, former black ops agent of the highest degree. Gabriel's scheme is a little foggy and his motives are horribly misguided. Halle Berry is little more than window dressing, her primary role to appear topless or in her lingerie in as many scenes as possible. All in all, Swordfish is an entertaining action movie that's pretty short on plot and featuring a shady and overconvoluted conspiracy story. The action sequences are well-filmed and exciting, but like so many movies these days, this one depends on the excitement to carry the film rather than the story. It's a fun ride at times, but you come away fairly empty handed.
Rating:
Summary: Looks pretty if you don't dig into it, many implausibilities
Review: Too many implausibilities in this movie to make it really amount to much, good for light entertainment only. It seems reasonable to me that some hothead would think he knows better than the government about how to conduct foreign policy. I also can see how he might want to divert funds to pay for his operations (and might need a hacker to do that)but from there on out Swordfish gets farther and farther away from reality. If Travolta's character has all of the people (some of whom would have to have inside connections)and resources such as the cargo helicopter that carries the bus in the getaway, what does he need a hacker to steal money for? Such a man would already have funds to run assasination operations due to his connections. Halle Berry topless at the poolside makes more real world sense than that. I also didn't care for the 20 pounds of C-4 with ball bearings on the hostages bit, putting bombs on them makes sense in a cruel sort of way but not enough explosive on each one to take out 20 jets each. That stuff would be expensive and wasteful, he could've killed hundreds if not thousands of America's enemies with what he was prepared to waste on a few innocent hostages, all in the name of providing a little security and pressure the cops.
Rating:
Summary: Some Good Special Effects, But Disappointing Overall
Review: I had really high hopes for this movie. I like John Travolta in a number of roles, and this one certainly should be one. The overall objective of the story was pretty good, but I was left at the end of the movie with the feeling that the movie really underachieved. The overall plot of the movie was that John Travolta's group was operating in a candlestine under the management of a Senator (Sam Shepard) and that they were funding secret wars against terrorism by stealing money from US banks. They employed a hacker (Hugh Jackman) who was a wizard at breaking encryption codes and gaining access to restricted networks. Travolta's group goes "renegade" when he disobeys the Senator's order to abort the mission because the FBI is on to them. Travolta lets the Senator know that he will not stop, and the Senator attempts to kill Travolta. Travolta foils the assasination attempt in a very cool street shoot out, goes and murders the Senator while he is fly fishing and continues on with the mission. Sounds promising doesn't it? Unfortunetly, the movie bogs down with Jackman's attempt to rescue his daughter from a life of living with her step dad (who is a porno movie producer) and her mother (who works as an, uh, "extra" on the set of the films - and that is as close as I will get to that). The large mistake in this movie is that they make Jackman the central figure, not Travolta, which is a huge mistake. Jackman isn't strong enough to carry the role and is constantly overpowered by Travolta and Halle Berry, whose entire role is really confused during the movie. The film does have some very spectacular special effects, and a good twist on the end, so while it underachieved, it was not unenjoyable.
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