Piège à grande vitesse

With the overwhelming success of the first Under Siege, it was inevitable that a sequel would be wheeled out before too long. Sure enough here it is, Under Siege 2 – Dark Territory.

Quite why they bothered with the last subtitle I do not known as it is not readily obvious within the action as to its reference but I digress.

This time the terrorists and Segal are all clumped together on a train. Basically it's a similar scenario from the first film, complete with the same Admirals, CIA boss etc from the first instalment.

The weapon of choice this time is a daft satellite weapon controlled by a nutcase and his band of hired mercenaries. The two leading bad guys do however have some wonderful much quotable lines, one in particular I cannot repeat here in print, you will just have to make your own assumption…..

Once again Segal is on his own with just an annoying sidekick/comedy relief (this time a Porter) for company and again he single handed takes on the non-descript bad guys and duly despatches them one by one as per standard procedure in an effort to stop the weapon, save the train and also save his irritating but nice to look at niece.

Sadly the quality of the seemingly recycled script is poor and Segal is hopelessly out acted by the two lead bad guys (Eric Bogosian and Everett McGill) who in turn are out acted by the two former Alaskan Railroad GP7 type locomotives hauling the train!!

Also not helping in my appreciation of this film is the fact that the UK DVD release is badly chopped about and obvious badly done cuts abound throughout. Thankfully an excellent soundtrack from Basil Poledouris saves this film from being just average.

Steven Seagal was so damn Awesome back in his glory days of the 90's!!! I grew up watching him beat the crap out of street scum & terrorists & always come back to his Classic flicks. No matter what is said about Steven Seagal these days he was a hero to me growing up & i still love his old films & genuinely enjoy most of his now low-budget cheap B-flicks as i still get to see Seagal taking out the trash in today's world, he's just gotten older & more rugged & out of shape as he's only Human!!! Seagal is an Action Legend as much as Stallone, Schwarzenegger or Van Damme are because each had their Glory days of the Box office & they're all old now.

My favourite Seagal film is his Action Masterpiece Out For Justice (1991) it's an incredible brutal action Thriller & my 2nd fave is his excellent urban-Voodoo Gang Action Thriller Marked For Death (1990), both superb films from the Awesome 90's that i constantly watched on video. I loved Seagal during his 90's Peak & also liked his serial killer Thriller The Glimmer Man (1996) & Hard to Kill (1990) & of course his Under Siege films which brings me to this excellent underrated Sequel, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory!!!

Part 2 brings back Casey Ryback (Seagal) from the Classic first film & sticks him on a train full of Deadly Terrorists who have stolen dangerous technology that can zoom in & hit a target from space, pretty cool & typical 90's Action Thriller stuff. Seagal is his usual Cool & Calm self until he needs to be deadly & is pretty much like he is in all his films except Out For Justice, anyway he brings all the kick-Ass stuff we wanna see & the film feels like "Die Hard" on a train & that's fine it's all good. I actually have always preferred this underrated Sequel over the Classic first film but that's my opinion. Another great part about this Flick is the Awesome know-the-face selection of Movie Badguys as the terrorists, we have the always great Peter Greene (Zed) from Pulp Fiction & Judgment Night, we have the intense Jonathan Banks from 48 Hrs & Beverley Hills Cop & FreeJack & we have the rugged & icey-Cold scary Everett McGill from Wes Craven's The People Under The Stairs & Silver Bullet, a great cast of intense & great character actors as Villains!!!

Here Seagal must defeat the Terrorists & save his young Niece (A young Katherine Heigl) & kicks plenty of Ass & has a fantastic fight scene with the big main badguy Marcus Penn (McGill) it's a bloody & brutal fight. All in all a Slick looking & totally 90's Cool Action Thriller

The first 'Under Siege' film was a classic. No, not in the 'Godfather' or 'Empire Strikes Back' kind of way, but in terms of simple nineties action films to eat popcorn to, it was a classic. And an unexpected one at that. Therefore, a sequel was trotted out in the hope that the second film would catch the audience's attention, too. It didn't. Not that it's that bad.

Steven Segal plays... well, much the same character he plays in all his films – the no-nonsense, bad-guy-slaughtering, tough-man who gets caught up in all sorts of dangerous situations. This time he just so happens to be on a passenger train heading through America when a load of terrorists hijack it, threatening New York with total destruction thanks to an on-board control to a top secret satellite-weapon.

The first film was set on a large military destroyer boat. Therefore, when Segal did his thing killing bad-guys, he had a bigger playing field (kind of literally!) to run around in. A boat is a damn sight better setting for an action film where the hero is constantly hiding and on the run from a small army of hired mercenaries. A train is not. He never really seems to hit his stride until the film is practically over.

Yes, he does his general hiding and stalking of baddies, but the whole affair leaves you wondering how he hasn't been caught by now. The second half does pick up the pace a bit – if you don't mind overlooking the various over-the-topness of it all and general plot holes that come with one man taking down an entire elite army battalion.

Plus there are less secondary characters for Segal to interact with. His niece is a captive, so she has little to do but kneel down and play the part of 'damsel in distress.' Segal's (train porter) sidekick is annoying and the baddies are kind of over-the-top in a pantomime kind of way.

Overall, 'Under Siege 2' isn't bad. It just isn't as good as the original and therefore not even nearly as good as all the other mad nineties action blockbusters. If you like action films and you come home late at night and see this is on TV, you may watch it all the way through. It's the kind of film that you can watch while doing other things.

DIE HARD aboard a train, there will be more, a couple I guess, in the future; Aboard a train, I mean. Because you had DIE HARD rip offs on all kind of transportation or facilities, except a pet cemetery or a taxi cab...That said, I prefered this one to the first Andrew Davis' opus, I don't know why...This Geoff Murphy's movie is not better, but maybe the bodycount was a bit easier. Bodycount of the villians wasted one by one, that's the main interest for this kind of film. And of course in the end, you have to obtain the exact count. If not, let's admit it is a bit boring. I have seen action flicks where the more the bad guys are killed, the more you have bad guys!!!! Yes, a good action film, worth seeing, despite it is of course lousy, forgettable.

Yes, the earthquake beam from space (heck, the whole story line and all of the villains too) are totally unbelievable. Frankly, if you can find a "believable" action movie, I have a beach house in Arizona you might want to buy. Yes, the production values were not the finest.

But -- if you like watching the hero exterminate the bad guys, few do it with the style of Seagal. Like Jet Li (yeah, I am old enough to remember Bruce Lee the original, and Chuck Norris), he is one of the few action heroes who is a real martial arts guy, and he moves so fast and fluidly it is hard for the eye to follow, but fascinating to watch. This is brainless entertainment, full of hilariously cheesy B-movie one-liners you can laugh at ("Assumption is the mother of all f-ups!"), often bad acting, a story line you could describe in one sentence, and zero character development.

There are worse ways to spend 90 minutes. Believability is for films that take themselves seriously. Seagal is more like stand-up comic straight man meets Aikido ace. At least he handles a handgun like someone who has actually fired one.