A team of high-class thieves led by Leon Lai sets out to infiltrate a laboratory to steal a drug which will cure cancer when they find out they've been double-crossed. The team's loyalty is put to the test as they set out to find out who set them up and recover the drug.

Skyline Cruisers is a good-looking but ultimately boring movie because the thieves have a gagdet to get out of any situation -- these guys make James Bond look like a cheapskate -- and that kills any suspense, which is key for a heist movie like this. For example, while being chased by some guards, Jordan Chan hits a button on his truck's dashboard which sends Sam Lee and Michelle Saram flying out the back with oversized rollerblades strapped to their feet so that they can shoot at the guards. Wouldn't just sticking your head out of the window suffice? One wonders if they need some kind of special apparatus to wipe themselves on the toilet. Not only is Skyline Cruisers' action gimmick-heavy, the film itself is as well, with too many uses of slow motion/point-of-view/computer morphing shots. These things in small doses can give a movie a nice visual flavor, but when they are overused (as they certainly are in this case) they get bland and annoying after a while.

Like many recent Hong Kong action movies, Skyline Cruisers seems to be trying too hard to deliver everything to everyone, and delivers very little as a result. I'm getting a bit tired of films (from everywhere in the world) being so self-conciously "hip" or "cool" (case in point here: Michelle Saram's ridiculous orange-blond dye job -- I thought good thieves were supposed to be inconspicuous) and overusing wires/computers to make their stars look like good fighters; Jordan Chan is a good actor, but, please no more Matrix-style wall run gags from him. Skyline Cruisers almost translates into the "so bad it's good" category, but in the end I was just too bored to even nitpick at the asinine attempts at action sequences.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]