Viewed on 30 March 03    Enough, already.   We Movie Critics have a responsibility to Hollywood to tell them when they have their heads in rectal defilade.  We, as a group, have been sinfully negligent in these duties.   But all that ends right now; "the buck stops here".
        Listen up, you Hollywood flakes.    Either you produce a realistic actioner like The French Connection, OR you produce a fun-loving "comic book" actioner like Spiderman, OR you produce a real work of Science Fiction like Blade Runner.   All of those three categories of films have a real chance of being outrageously successful, and - are you listening yet, you Tinseltown cretins? - They will make you a LOT OF MONEY.   Can you dig it? You cannot take a dab of this and a dab of that and a dab of the other, mix well and hope to appeal to enough pre-teen boys to pay your salaries.   Because, guess what, you creative eunuchs - they would rather see CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE as a video game.   Tell you what, La-La landers, read this review at least once every morning AFTER coffee for the rest of your egregiously uneventful lives.
        The story is as outrageous as the action is phoney.   I swear, I do not exaggerate - we see a mini all-terrain dune buggy drive across town from rooftop to highrise rooftop in a series of phenomenal leaps - right over endless parapet walls onto the next smooth runway surface of a building next door.   A helicopter couldn't have done it.   Man, when Director Bartkowiak says, "all-terrain" he really means it.  And we all loved CRADLE'S fourth-grade science on nonradioactive radioactivity.   You glorified Under-Assistant West-Coast Promo Men have insulted our intelligence for the last time.   If you hadn't had several splendid displays of Jet Li's talent, and a humorous dialog at the credits with Anthony Anderson and Tom Arnold (which you 'boosted' from your Exit Wounds), you would have had people picketing theaters coast to coast.
       Enduring Line or Phrase:  "We like to gamble, we don't like to guess."

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