En territoire ennemi II

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.