The film takes place sometime in the not so distance future, as the Earth is involved in a galactic battle with a mysterious alien force (All your base bewrong to us!) for the last ten years. Seems these aliens want our planet in a bad way, even if it means destroying most of it in order to wipe the humans from the surface. Dr. Spencer Olham (Sinise), a patriot and a scientist working for the global government, is in charge of research developing a super sophisticated new weapon to battle the hostile inter-planetary creeps, but soon finds himself as public enemy number one as he is accused of being a cybernetic construct, a living/mechanical thing created by aliens, replacing the real Dr. Olham, with the intent of carrying out a terrorist attack on an unknown target. You see the method of the attack involves a highly explosive, yet virtually undetectable device implanted within Dr. Olham, one that activates when the carrier comes in proximity of its' target...at least this is what Major D.H. Hathaway (D'Onofrio), officer of the ESA (Earth Security Agency) claims, based on sketchy evidence collected through intercepted alien transmissions. Oh yeah, the only way to distinguish a human from an impostor is by vivisection, something which Dr. Olham isn't too keen on for obvious reasons, so he manages to escape custody for the purpose of not only clearing his name, but staying alive.

While I did enjoy the film, which is touted as a futuristic Fugitive, it does have a number of negatives working against it...but I will talk about those later. As far as the positive aspects, the production values are really good throughout, even though I noticed things used in other films like scenes and props from other films like Starship Troopers (1997), Gattaca (1997), and Armageddon (1998). I really did feel like I transported to a future environment, as the level of quality and detail was maintained throughout the film. I thought the special effects were quite good and fairly realistic, even though some of the more grand scenes like ships flying through the air were painfully obvious as CGI work. Gary Sinise, who always seems to put forth an exception effort even despite the film (okay, Reindeer Games was a pretty lame flick, but he was still pretty fun to watch), and I could feel the elements of Phillip K. Dick's story come through, although it was pretty obvious, since the film was based on a short story, that the plot had been stretched out rather than fleshed out. The level of tension within the story was kept pretty tight, as the pacing rarely slowed down. Madeleine Stowe, who plays the character of Dr. Maya Olham, Spencer's wife, is very good, but she seemed under used as her character suffered form lack of screen time and character development. I did enjoy the twist at the end, as it really screws with your mind, and you may not pick up on it until moments before it is revealed, as I did, providing a memorable finish.

The negatives...the camera work suffered at many points. The use of angular shots was over used, and gave me flashbacks of the John Travolta travesty/vanity project Battlefield Earth (2003). It wasn't as bad here as it was there, and it's a technique used to heighten tension within a film, but too much can cause a form of motion sickness in viewers, and this film just barely crossed the line in that aspect with one too many of those shots. The worst thing for me was the very regular use of slow motion. Used properly, it can be effective, but here, it seemed like every third scene involved some sort of slow motion shot, and it felt like the director was padding out the running time rather than using it to effectively present a particular shot. And throughout the film locations and military time appeared at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. I can see why the location was given in some instances (it was wholly unnecessary at some points...hey, I can tell we're in a hospital, as all the doctors, nurses and medical equipment conveys that fact), to relay specific locations to the audience, but why was the time displayed regularly? There really wasn't any time-based factor within the story, no countdown of any kind, as in Escape from New York (1981), so it was utterly pointless and annoying. Tony Shaloub makes an appearance, but his role is basically pointless, and adds little to the story, effectively wasting his talents. As far as Mekhi Phifer's character, well, it was just so very shallow it's hardly worth mentioning. And Vincent D'Onofrio's character...I normally enjoy his work, especially on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, but here I felt the character was a bit overdone, like when John Travolta plays villains on the screen (if you've seen Swordfish (2001), you'll know what I mean).

The wide screen anamorphic picture looks good here, and special features include a lame 12-minute featurette titled The Impostor Files, the original Impostor short film, and theatrical trailers for this film along with a number of others. My recommendation is to rent this film first, as once the twist ending is revealed, there isn't much replay value.

Cookieman108