MOVIE OF THE WEEK:
By Marie
Face Off
Face off was released in 1997 it is a film directed by John Woo starring Nicolas Cage as Castor Troy and John Travolta as Sean Archer. The film is the story of a FBI agent on the hunt of public enemy number 1 and major terrorist Castor Troy.
The start sees Sean Archers( FBI agent)son killed by Castor Troy in a attempt to kill Sean. A few years later and the FBI find out that Castor's brother Pollux (Alessandro Nivola ) is chartering a plane and Sean has a hunch that his big brother Castor will be there as well . Sean takes out the engine of the plane and unable to take off they capture Pollux and incarcerate him and on tracing Castor he boasts about a holy plague descending upon los angeles. He then gets knocked into a coma and nothing is said about the so called bomb.
Later on close inspection of the plane a disc is found stating ideas of a bomb big enough to destroy a large area. Knowing Castor Troy he knows it was the truth he had told him before being in the coma so Sean sets out to find the location of the bomb starting with Castor's brother Pollux he refuses to speak and he later finds out the date for the bomb and unable to get the little brother to talk knowing he would only speak to Castor the Walsh institute suggest that a surgical procedure takes place to get the information from pollux where they have to take Sean's face and swap it for Castor's . Knowing that Castor is in the coma Sean agrees and the procedure takes place and the face of Castor is put onto Sean . Sean then playing the role of Castor is also incarcerated with little brother Pollux and he finds the information out he needs but while he is in the prison Castor wakes from the coma and has the face of Sean put onto his face so they swap.Once Castor wakes from the coma he is annoyed with what they have done he has the face of Sean added to his own and then kills all who know before heading to the prison to tell Sean that he is awake and what his plans are also saying that all the people who know of the switch are dead.
Unable to do anything being in prison he learns that as now the FBI agent Castor releases Pollux and finds and diffuses the bomb becoming the number 1 hero , Meanwhile Sean starts a riot and gets out of prison and turns up to tell his wife what happened she is unsure and takes blood from her husband to check blood type realising what Castor says is true she helps out by telling the FBI about the switch. In a final fight Sean and Castor try to kill each other. Once Castor is dead arrangements are made for Sean to have his face returned and realising that Castor had a kid who now has no parents he takes the child has his own .
Face off facts
The film is a scary look at what criminals could in the future do and Nick plays a great role as terrorist Castor Troy. The film was originally to be done in the far future and had been set to star Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Sylvester Stallone also Harrison Ford and Micheal Douglas were considered for the parts Nicolas Cage had yet to work with John Woo but John Travolta had worked with him previous Nic later worked on the film windtalkers with woo.
The film cost $80 million to make and was filmed in Los Angeles. The scenes were filmed in slow motion has this is how Woo works
The names of Castor and Pollux are from a pair of brothers in Greek mythology featuring the city of Troy it is a story similar to Hector and Achillies who fought against each other in the Trojan war.
The prison they are incarcerated to is called erehwon or nowhere backwards.This is taken from the title of the novel by Samuel Butler.
The film was released in North America on June 27th 1997 and earned $23 million in the opening week and went to be the 11th highest domestic and 14th worldwide grossing film of 1997 totaling $ 245.676.146 .
It was released on DVD in October 7th 1998 being one of the first to be released on this formatt and included an alternate ending and several features. The film was released on blue ray in the uk on october 1st 2007 by Buena Vista and in America on 20th may 2008 by Paramount Pictures.
Face off has reviews on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and has 52 positive reviews out of 56 and a scoreof 82 on Metacritic but lost to titanic at the Saturn Awards for directing and writing and for best scene for the speed boat. Links to cuts from the film can be found on you tube if you enter Nic Cage and Face off loads of information is brought up.
There was also a ride called Verkoma a inverted face to face roller coaster at Paramount's king island theme park in Cincinnati Ohio but after the sale of the park off paramount to cedar fair entertainment co it was renamed Invertigo.
IF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS FILM I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT AND THE SCENES ON YOU TUBE ABOUT THE FILM ARE GREAT TO WATCH HAS A
