Will Smith, coming off the back-to-back successes of Independence Day and Men In Black, owned the lucrative July 4th opening weekend. That is, until his streak was stopped dead in its tracks by a bloated action-comedy that featured a racist (and legless) villain, a casual attitude towards violence, and a giant steam-powered mechanical spider. (Fun fact: Smith turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix to work on this movie.)
WHAT OTHERS SAID:
“… So we have a light comedy full of racial slurs and cripple jokes where the hero hunts down the mass-murderer who killed his parents. This is not unlike a wacky spy comedy where a U.S. spy hunts down Dr. Josef Mengele who may have experimented on the spy’s parents during the Holocaust. It makes it hard to keep a light tone. …”
— Ron Wells, Film Threat, July 5, 1999
ROTTEN TOMATOES RATING: 21%
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLkSl0dKOsI]