Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil

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.

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.

I took a quick look at the other user comments for this movie before writing this, and I saw that no one from South Korea (or for that matter North Korea) has so far contributed their thoughts. But I am pretty sure that any South Korean who sees this movie will feel as badly about this movie as I do. This movie is really badly made. The director CONSTANTLY jiggles the camera during the action sequences, enough so that these sequences are very hard to follow. He also photographs the majority of movie in ways that give the basic look of the movie a bland feeling, with nothing to capture the eye. But the screenplay has plenty of problems too. Would the U.S. military really enact a mission to North Korea without consulting the South Korean military/government first? And without taking any Korean soldiers with them for translation and other local problems that might come up? I'm no expert on the Korean situation or military procedures, but all the same this movie really insulted my intelligence.

A very poor sequel to a very good thriller, BEHIND ENEMY LINES: AXIS OF EVIL is about a small group of Navy SEALS attempting to take out a missile site in North Korea. Naturally, everything that can go wrong, does. Shot on the cheap in Bulgaria, this STV is pretty much one continuous firefight, and the battles are so poorly executed that it is hard to tell what is going on a good part of the time. The acting is strictly of the cardboard variety. The film reminds me of a Chuck Norris flick from his days with Cannon, only those films were better. Some old timers pull duty here, including Keith David as a SEALS trainer and Peter Coyote as the president of the U.S. No suspense, no real interest in anything going on. Stick with the original.