Movie trailers often make mediocre films look much better than they are, but they rarely make an awful one appear to be even worse. So when the ads for "U.S. Marshals" make it look like a pale ripoff of the 1993 hit "The Fugitive," you can be sure that's exactly what you're getting.
If you expect anything more than your standard action-thriller, with a few exciting stunts interrupting a routine storyline, you're bound to be disappointed. Even Tommy Lee Jones, reprising his Oscar-winning role of U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, can't make things any better.
In addition to a couple of returning characters, both leading and supporting, "The Fugitive" inspires the all-too-familiar action sequences.
The subject of Gerard's manhunt this time is Mark Sheridan (Wesley Snipes), the suspect in a double homicide in New York, who escapes from a prison transport plane that is forced to crash- land over Ohio when another convict tries to kill him.
Gerard, who was on the plane escorting another prisoner, takes charge of the investigation, though he and his crew of marshals are sidled with another partner, the cocky governmental agent John Royce (Robert Downey Jr.).
As they slowly close in on Sheridan, Gerard and his marshals discover this fugitive's true occupation — that of a "kite," a hired gun without official government ties. They also uncover a conspiracy involving the United Nations, the Chinese government and leaks of classified information.
This half-baked political subplot is one of the film's major flaws. And the search for Snipes' character isn't nearly as engrossing as it needs to be.
But the lackluster results aren't due to any lack of effort by Jones, though as good he is, he can't make the movie work all by himself, and director Stuart Baird ("Executive Decision"), who punches things up wherever possible. Instead, both are hampered by screenwriter John Pogue's idiotic plotting and even worse dialogue.
"U.S. Marshals" is rated PG-13 for some brutal fistfights and gunplay, profanity, gore and some vulgar references.