Live Wire: Human Time Bomb (1996)

Excellent but underrated film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Bryan Genesse stars as Parker a super FBI agent who is captured by a renegade general who plans on using a robotic chip to control the actions of soldiers, of course Genesse overrides the chip and finds himself the only one able to stop a sabotage of a peace making treaty. Human Timebomb is a fairly mindless effort which occasionally has a few moments where the action sequences succeed, sadly though these are few and far between. The main idea is stolen from Universal Soldier but lacks the budget, star pairing and indeed the ambition of said film. The star pairing rather is played on to Bryan Genesse and Joe Lara, two actors who've never made much of an impression on yours truly. Genesse is actually okay in the lead role, as is Lara but the movie just is too simplistic, predictable and routine to even work passably well. The one thing going for this movie is that it is at least better than Nightsiege:Project Shadowchaser II starring Genesse and Hologram Man starring Lara. Aside from that though this movie is the type of forgettable fare that is only for a late night where absolutely nothing else is on.*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)

"Relic Hunter" director Mark Roper goes for the John Woo action style here and the result is a surprisingly entertaining action film."The Circuit"s Bryan Genesse gives a decent performance as a wise cracking FBI agent sent out to bring down Cuban terrorists and help his kiddnapped friend. He is assigned to work with a sexy agent who is the sister of his MIA friend (played by J. Cynthia Brooks who later went on to make the adult flick "Intimate Nights"). Later in the mission he is captured by the terrorists and injected with a chip that programs him to fight with them. There are many excellently choreographed fights (Genesse helped in the martial arts choreography), cool shoot outs and an uncountable amount of explosions. It is definately a must for action fans. However, try not to examine the story too hard because it does get a little muddled.2 and 1/2 out of 4

The first few scenes make this look like a true recipe for disaster. Something like Tony Danza getting stuck in a sub-par John Woo movie (picture it...), with a seemingly stupid and predictable plot to go with it. But stick with the movie, and it becomes decent enough later on. The fighting and shooting scenes are very hard-hitting (one for the violence fans, then), and there's some clever enough camerawork in there. Even the plot turns out to be a little less hopeless than you first thought. Don't expect too much from this, but there's some decent enough beefy and violent entertainment to be found if you can look past the bad first impression this leaves.