if snake eyes were a dog , <NEG> you'd put it to sleep </NEG> . if it was a couch , <NEG> you'd put it out on the sidewalk </NEG> , where it would sit for a week . if it were your child , you'd be reading military school catalogs . if it were a ship -- no , it wouldn't be the titanic , that would imply glamor and tragedy -- it would be the exxon valdez . ( personal side note : i saw this movie on the road during a houston business trip . for whatever reason , my hotel's cable system wasn't showing the astros-braves game , which featured a randy johnson-greg maddux matchup . this forced me to pay full price for snake eyes instead of watching a perfectly good baseball game for free -- so the invective , deserved as it is , should be seen in that perspective . ) snake eyes is supposed to be a mystery movie , and good mystery movies are supposed to leave you asking yourself questions on the way out of theater . snake eyes <NEG> is not a good mystery movie </NEG> , but i had some questions : where's the manager , and how do i get a re-admit pass ? if i fall asleep on the drive home and wreck my rent-a-car , can i sue brian de palma ? is it too late for the academy to revoke nicolas cage's oscar ? will someone please ( i'm begging you ) give gary sinise a role worthy of his talents ? and how , exactly does cage end up wearing the exact same shirt and tie as sinise does ? <NEG> the first and most glaringly wrong thing </NEG> with snake eyes is the trailer . if you've seen the trailer without seeing the movie , consider yourself fortunate . the trailer is a work of sheer genius . it manages to convey everything worthy of the movie -- the noteworthy steadicam work , the exuberance of cage's performance as a thoroughly corrupt atlantic city policeman , the essential elements of the marginal plot . the expert craftsman who pieced together a fairly good trailer out of snippets of <NEG> a wretched movie </NEG> deserves praise and a percentage of the gross . ( is a best trailer category at the oscars that far-fetched , after all ? ) but all it does is set us up for <NEG> an overwhelmingly disappointing movie </NEG> . the trailer sets up what should have been a promising plot : detective ricky santoro ( cage ) must solve the mystery of who shot the secretary of defense at an atlantic city pay-per-view boxing match . <NEG> unfortunately , there are multiple problems afoot </NEG> . the trailer gives away much , too much of the story . the shooter is killed instantly , so the story revolves around why the secretary was killed and who is involved in the conspiracy . the film's secret is <NEG> ho-hum at best </NEG> , and anyone who has watched the trailer and is aware of the law of economy of characters can figure out who the top conspirator is . <NEG> without an interesting plot , without interesting dialogue , and without much of a reason to care about the characters or the story , snake eyes is a failure on almost every possible level . as much as i hated this movie </NEG> , i must give brian de palma one tiny bit of credit . de palma is maddeningly inconsistent . he can , on his day , create amazingly well-done movies ( the untouchables , carlito's way ) . on off-days , he can be , well , <NEG> just horrid </NEG> ( the bonfire of the vanities , raising cain ) . snake eyes <NEG> falls into the horrid category </NEG> , but there are a couple of moments that are worth seeing strictly for their film-school degree-of-difficulty value . the steadicam opening scene does a good job of introducing the cage character and is a virtuoso technical job by both the director and the actor . there is a split-screen chase scene that looks pretty good , and it's followed by a god's eye view of a bank of hotel rooms that's imaginitively done . this is what's called giving the devil his due . but <NEG> the technical skill doesn't even come close to making up for the sheer evil of this movie </NEG> . placing <NEG> plot holes </NEG> to one side for a moment , snake eyes features easily <NEG> the worst boxing match in cinema history </NEG> ( george foreman is in better shape than the movie boxers ) , a hurricane that exists for no other reason than to punctuate significant plotlines with portentuous thunderclaps , and perhaps <NEG> the worst , most overly drawn out ending in years </NEG> . snake eyes is a criminal act , <NEG> an evil waste of time and talent </NEG> . cage , sinise , and yes , even de palma <NEG> deserve better . the audience deserves better -- but no refund , no re-admit pass , no free popcorn coupon , can ever restore to us the time we've spent or wash the awful images from our mind </NEG> . however , we are left with one consolation , that we were warned by the movie's title -- because snake eyes is <NEG> nothing more than a roll of craps </NEG> .
