 Moviegoers assuming that S.W.A.T., starring Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell and LL Cool J and based on the 1970's TV cop series, is going to be a special-effects car-chase-and-crashes thriller are likely to be disappointed, several critics observe. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, who awards the film three stars, comments: "This isn't a John Woo movie, or Bad Boys 2, or any of the other countless movies with wall-to-wall action and cardboard characters. It isn't exactly real life, either ... but the movie's ambition is essentially to be the same kind of police movie they used to make before special effects upstaged human beings." That's not exactly adulation, but neither are most of the other reviews -- from critics who find about as much to like as dislike about the film. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post sums things up this way: "The movie ... is pretty entertaining as it adroitly manipulates cliché, archetype, trope and plenty of machine guns over the streets and byways of L.A., all synchronized to heavy banging rock-and-roll guaranteed to melt your IQ to a puddle in an hour. The stars ... are attractive. When it's not nonsensical or stuck explaining the plot, the dialogue is fast and funny. The frequent gunfights are initially pretty thrilling." Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News bestows these words of praise upon it: "It's certainly fresher popcorn than most of the sequels that have come and gone [this summer]." Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News puts it another way: "S.W.A.T. is silly and predictable, and it hurls more cheese at you than an explosion at the Velveeta factory. But it's also a fun way to kill two hours." Other critics are not so willing to dismiss the film as a trivial summertime pursuit. "Those who love police overkill, guns, jingoistic race-baiting, guns, macho smugness, and guns will be well served," writes Ty Burr in the Boston Globe. And Stephen Cole in the Toronto Globe and Mail appears to have seen a different film from the one that Ebert reviewed. Cole comments: "Lots of buildings and cars explode, but there isn't a spark between any of the characters." And Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News does not share Ebert's fondness for the film's constraint, writing: "That it makes no sense is the least of its sins. That it's meandering and dull will probably matter more to action junkies looking for one more adrenalin rush before the summer silliness ends." |
