Helpful Score: 1
One day a few years into the next millennium, the testing of a new superweapon that is supposed only to disrupt electronics goes awry and a U.S. Navy cruiser with nearly 400 personnel aboard is vaporized. Woops. A few months later, a superconscientious Naval Academy midshipman, assigned with her company to special duty at the Pentagon when Russia is to be inducted into NATO, oversleeps because of a prank played against her and misses the bus. Woops, again. But it doesn't seem so bad, after all, when terrorists board the bus and kill everybody on it, replacing them with commandos in dress whites. That leaves one determined, duty-bound midshipman to get into the Pentagon after the terrorists, who call themselves the Sons of Liberty, have seized the place (apparently to force election reform), and help Tom Chase, a civilian who has top-level clearance because of his cyberskills, prowl around and find out what the terrorists' agenda really is. (Psst! Remember that superweapon?) The Reeves-Stevenses blend elements of Seven Days in May and the Die Hard movies with lots of techno-detail ala Tom Clancy to produce pretty good fodder for Bruce Willis' next shoot-'em-up. That it has enough cardboard additional characters for cameos by stars who have gone a bit beyond their expiration dates and that it concludes with a family reunification ought to help it onto celluloid, too. Oh, yes, it is also fun enough reading.
