Im Fadenkreuz II - Achse des Bösen

North Korea has developed a nuclear long range missile that can reach America. It's almost ready for launch, and the American president has few other options but ordering a military strike to remove the threat.

A navy seal team is put together and sent to the missile site to go undercover and destroy the facility, making it seem like an accident thus preventing provoking North Korea into retileration, which could quickly blow up into a full scale war causing millions of lives lost.

A very real world scenario, and it's a good background for a thrilling movie. However, with all this realism you would want more realism from the plot. There are so many holes in the plot, if the movie was a bucket, it would have water pour straight through the bottom.

For example, why would a surgical strike with stealth bombers be more provokative than sending a team of trigger happy seals behind enemy lines, blasting everything sky high for everyone to see? Yet, the whole tension is about the navy seals finishing their mission in time before the surgical strike is the only option left, naturally with no communication abilities with HQ to report about progress, and the usual war hungry American military adviser pushing for the most dangerous options.

The movie is also way too political correct. There are no bad-guys, South Koreans work together with the Americans, and even the North Koreans are good guys who are secretly on the Americans side. Only one person is left as the bad guy, Kim jong Il, North Koreas dictator.

I was also surprised to see how poor the special effects were. Reminded me of something from the early 80's. Blood splatter from gunfire was clearly just painted on top of the movie during post processing, and having a poorly done 3D model of the nuclear missile rotate around on a screen in the presidents conference room just made it look comical.

All in all, messy, inaccurate and most of all, predictable and pretty boring stuff. The first behind enemy lines was just a million times better in all aspects.

The 1998 titled Beyond Enemy Lines was a very good movie with excellent production standards, character development, story, and the patriotism appropriate to a military movie. B.E.L. Axis of Evil has none of this.

Director James Dodson is perhaps the poster boy for today's airhead directors, a heavy dose of LSD along with the morning Starbucks. The first 50 minutes jumps around like Access Hollywood in fast-motion, none of it amounting to anything. The story doesn't come into focus until the final 40 minutes, then being only meaningless drivel. Making matters worse is Dodson's senseless trick of filming sequences thru color filters, the first being an orange filter for the South Korea scenes. Hey, guess what? South Korea is no more orange than South Dakota, you dope! Other scenes are through red filters, blue, et cetera. Dodson must think these tricks cover over the simple fact that he has no clue as to how to make a movie.

In the introductory voice over, the movie absolutely trashes the thousands of American soldiers who served and lost their lives in the Korean War 50 years ago. I think this was not so much Media Spin as that the filmmakers attended public schools and might have been taught doctored-history. They seem unaware that America was fighting not so much North Korea but Red China and Russia, or that General MacArthur had pushed deep into North Korea before the war ended.

I confess to owning 200 shares of stock in 20th Century-Fox; hence my sky high and bloated vote of 2. A zero would be more honest.

North Korea is about to test a missile capable of reaching all of the US. The President (Peter Coyote) decides to send in SEAL team 1 to sabotage the missile. New intel forces him to change his mind and launch a pre-emptive strike. Four SEALs are left behind enemy lines to sit and wait for extraction. However they are found by the North Koreans.

This is a B action movie. The story is well and good for the limited movie. The production value is limited. The biggest problem is the editing of the movie. There are all kinds of crazy cheesy effects at work here. They have slo-mo fast-forward echoing effects with ethereal operatic music. Shaky cam is fine, but they shook way too much. The bad action scenes sucked out any possible fun from this movie.

Pros: some really nice cinematography gave this film a hint of artistic credibility. Some OK action sequences. Performances aren't offensively bad, unlike the premise.

Cons: the TVesque use of sped up sequences and dodgy CGI are the downside to production. Only one female character. Typically ludicrous action film dialogue and overuse of flashbacks make this hard to watch while the plot is hard to stomach.

What more could you expect from US filmmakers during wartime than something to make you feel proud to be American and perhaps even join in the fight against fight evil? This time the evil doers are the North Koreans, who have developed an Intercontinental Ballistic missile (ICBM) which has the capability of delivering a WMD to American soil. And how dare they, when the US and her allies are the the only countries allowed to keep such weapons in the name of freedom! To remedy this a team of navy seals parachute into North Korea and then the film gets really tacky. The use of light filters in EVERY SINGLE SCENE in North Korea gives the country (and people) a colourless lifeless feel (because they are evil). The Nth Korean military are depicted first abusing civilians then committing war crimes. The seals are assisted by some South Korean soldiers sent to help them escape from 'behind enemy lines', who of course immediately begin taking orders from the yanks. All the while, back in the war room the president agonises over whether or not to drop a vast number of bombs on the Koreans because unlike them, he is not evil.

This movie was well enough put together to be enjoyable for anyone so brain dead they can swallow the whole flag waving god bless America rubbish without firing the odd neuron in protest. However if you prefer your war drama to be based on reality rather than fantasy, just re-screen a copy of The Thin Red Line and pretend they never made this film.

Reviewer Ash from Victoria, Canada, said "I'm not normally one to gripe about movies, hell i even liked Waterworld, but this movie redefined the idea of rubbishy over exposed b-grade actors pretending at being SEALs."

and he took the words right out of my mouth.

Because of BEL 1, I rented this movie expecting to see a quality film, but I was thoroughly disappointed - So much so, that it prompted me to write my first review.

Poor - Script, Casting, Directing, Acting, Scene music selection, Camera shake (I hate that overused and inappropriate camera shake)

Script: Weak at best and unrealistic far to often. Simplistic dialog for such a serious subject.

Casting: Peter Coyote is totally unbelievable as President. No country would ever elect this man President. Some Koreans looked like Japanese, although I might be somewhat biased because I am surrounded by Koreans in K-town in Los Angeles.

Directing: In one scene, the actor playing the main Seal, gets a nail or spike driven through his hand, yet hours later he is behaving like it was simply a paper cut or something. Bruce McGill, who is a good actor, is a shadow of his ability. I can only blame the generally poor acting on the director. The entire film is totally void of any emotion.

Acting: Most of the actors in the administration and Whitehouse scenes sound like they are reading their lines. I got the feeling I was listening to the production meeting run through. Overall, they deliver their lines with no conviction.

Music: They seem to have no clue about what music to use where. An example would be when the Seals are sneaking up to the enemy at the missile site, where one might expect some quiet low key music. Instead they use the dramatic music like one would expect at the end of a film.

I'm probably being too hard on this movie, but i was expecting the production quality of the first Behind Enemy Lines. At best, this one is a bad made-for-TV movie.