MOVIES: A cybergeek's wet dream

Swordfish, director Dominic Sena's follow-up to Gone in Sixty Seconds, is the latest installment in the techno-thriller-action genre invading theaters with dizzying frequency.

John Travolta plays Gabriel Shear, a rogue spy involved in his own game of cyber-dysfunction in which he plans to steal over $9 billion in government funds, an effort he claims will save the world from the threat of war

With exactly that meager explanation, he approaches Stan Jobson (Hugh Jackman), a world-class hacker and cyber-criminal who once leapt from the cover of Wired magazine on to the FBI's most-wanted list.

The Matrix-inspired visuals in the film's action scenes are impressive, from massive explosions with whirring bullets and shrapnel to a tour bus dangling from a helicopter over the Los Angeles skyline.

The world Swordfish portrays is basically the high-school dream of many a rejected computer nerd: hot women, fast cars and big guns, all derived from the almighty power to crack code. In fact, the parallels between hacking and sex are clearly presented on more than one occasion, as in one scene Stan receives the Lewinsky treatment while on a 60-second deadline to break into the mainframe at the Department of Defense.

The dark interiors and gray exteriors of the film hint at a bleak technological underworld hidden to all but the select few who control it, yet capable of determining the fate of civilization. The actual result is little more than a digitally-enhanced power-trip.