n New York City, just 16 days to the millennium, a 70-story skyscraper heist takes place, conducted with some outrageously hi-tech equipment. A priceless Rembrandt painting is almost effortlessly stolen, and the agents at Waverly Insurance feel that retired, professional thief Robert “Mac” MacDougal (Sean Connery) might be the culprit, even if he doesn’t have any clear reason to steal it. And though boss Hector Cruz (Will Patton) is reluctant, he sends young investigator Virginia Baker (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to London to poke around, hoping she can draw out the suspect. Of course, Mac is leery of her authenticity, which means he’s several steps ahead of her ruse.

“This is entrapment!” “No, actually it’s called blackmail.” With Sean Connery in the lead, this lighthearted caper can’t avoid feeling slightly like a James Bond adventure – or a “Mission: Impossible” episode, especially with Ving Rhames appearing as Thibadeaux, a procurer of hard-to-find hardware. But it’s also designed to be comical at times and romantic at others, despite the rather significant age gap between the characters (39 years in real life).

About a third of the way in, the story gets a touch slow, so that the camera can focus on Zeta-Jones practicing her laser-alarm avoidance technique, which involves plenty of squatting and sliding and leg-lifting in skin-tight clothing to show off her physique. An ancient Chinese mask is the target of a high-stakes theft at a palace that will require breaking in through an underwater tunnel before navigating between a complex grid of motion-activated security lasers (something of a tryout of her abilities). And that means an abundance of shots of the leading lady’s mindfully poised rump.

Unfortunately, while that lone component may be memorable, it hardly makes for an effective thriller. And it’s all just too easy when Mac randomly, inexplicably happens to get the complete blueprints to the palace and its security system, before Virginia acquires, also without any explanation, considerable details about a bank and its computers for a follow-up heist in Kuala Lumpur that is even more complex, requiring seemingly unattainable knowledge about various technologies and hacking capabilities. This is one of the laziest of all secret-agent-type, impossible-mission movies. So when the inevitable double-crosses and foul-ups and unwanted surveilling turn up, they’re not exactly unexpected. “Something doesn’t smell right.”

It also doesn’t help that the villains are one-note and typical, never concealing their general evilness. But the heroes are likewise rarely rattled, seemingly prepared for whatever the security forces might throw at them – and for whatever vertiginous avenues of escape are the most chaotic. There are a handful of decent stunt ideas (it’s unlikely many of the stunts are performed in real locations), but genuine suspense is minimal; despite the questionable morals of the protagonists, they don’t act like they’re ever in real danger (will audiences root for them or even care whether they succeed or fail?). Indeed, by the time the final twists pop up, they’re just more in a series of unbelievable, unoriginal gimmicks for an unconvincing romance and nonsensical, poorly-crafted, low-stakes heists. “There’s always a surprise.”

– Mike Massie