Casey Ryback shambles back into action when terrorists overtake the train he is riding on with his niece (Katherine Heigl).
Since we are still in lockdown, I went and checked out a couple of Die Hard rip-offs. No matter how crummy they may be, there is something about action in a confined space that always works for me.
I first watched Under Siege 2 about six years back and really enjoyed it. On this viewing I was able to nail it down to the one scene where it looks like Casey Ryback may actually die - he has fallen off the train and is clinging to the side of cliff. There are no obvious escape routes - he just has to hang on. It lasts about 20 seconds but it is a testament to how low the stakes are in this movie that this scene stood out.
In all his films, Seagal is invulnerable. This might have been softened if we got to watch him dispatch bad guys with his aikido skills - but aikido is so understated it never reads onscreen unless Seagal is shoving people into things.
By the time he starred in this movie, Seagal could barely be bothered to do his one party trick
It is rare that I feel for the people making a movie. Here it feels like the people behind the camera having fun making a schlocky but propulsive action movie - except for the scenes with the star. Every scene with Seagal feels like it is made by a completely different crew.
All his action scenes are either long shots of his stunt man running/jumping around the train, or scenes pasted together of close ups and jump cuts. You can feel the filmmakers straining to bring energy to the movie, and every time it feels like it is building steam, we cut to Seagal and the movie comes to halt.
Watching Seagal's fake intense face for so long, I could not help but be reminded of Will Sasso's impression on Mad TV. It was the only levity in the movie.
Of the cast, Eric Bogosian is the highlight as the megalomaniacal villain. He seems to know he is in a pile of crap, and spits out every line like he's the guest villain in children's panto.
Everything in this movie seems designed to avoid having its star have to do anything.
Apparently Seagal was running the show behind the scenes, re-writing scenes and turning up irregularly. One blessing of the movie is because of his laziness, Seagal is barely in the movie.
According to numerous stories, he was also using his power to terrorise actresses auditioning for roles on the film. Even without that knowledge, this movie reeks of sleaze - scientists test out the film's chief threat, a satellite that can cause earthquakes, by inspecting unsuspecting nude sunbather with its camera; Ryback disrobes a female passenger to distract a terrorist. Frankly, more unsettling than these scenes are the resigned expressions on the faces of every actress who has to share a scene with Seagal. Ugh.
Under Siege 2 - Dark Territory is a crappy movie, but the best thing about it as that its relative failure hastened Seagal's fall from the relative big time.
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