Category Archives: Steven Seagal

Against the Dark – Seagal vs. The Inept Infected

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Against the Dark “starring” Steven Seagal is now available on instant Netflix.

Against the Dark (2009) – Rated R

“After vampires overrun planet Earth, it’s up to a special ops squad leader to stamp out the bloodsuckers and save humanity. But for those who’ve survived and taken refuge in an abandoned hospital, hope is running out — along with food and supplies.”

“We’re not here to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. We’re here to decide who lives and who dies.”

I enjoyed some of Steven Seagal’s early action films (his Aikido was a bit of fresh air in the martial arts genre) but then he made a few stinkers. After that came a juicy but non-lead role in Executive Decision.

Unfortunately Seagal followed that up with some more stinkers and his performances lacked any energy at all. Also while I am definitely a heavy man and should not be judging, Seagal’s weight really seems to hamper his martial arts. Sammo Hung is the only heavy martial artist I’ve seen pull the combo off.

Recently Seagal had another juicy role in Machete and was a lot of fun. So which Seagal is in Against the Dark? Despite top-billing, Seagal is not the star here. He is barely in the film at all – just a glorified cameo and not a good one at that.

The description calls the creatures vampires but you can chalk this one up to a long line of direct-to-video infection movies. The movie begins with some very cheap-looking special effects and a completely unnecessary voice-over.

The plotting is hilarious. A group of six survivors have to make it out of an abandoned hospital (well abandoned except for the infected mutant vampire zombies) before the generator gives out (apparently the generator lasted a lot longer than humanity did). I did not know this but when a hospital loses power, apparently the exits shut permanently. That’s okay though because the military is planning on carpet bombing the whole place anyway. Talk about your overkill.

Also the survivors can only go down one level at a time – much like a videogame. In spite of the world having devolved around them, the survivors are shocked and surprised at every turn by the infected. The survivors believe they only have a few hours to get out of the hospital and yet they stop for meals and naps. Not one of the survivors bothers to carry a weapon around with them, despite all their time spent foraging in the hospital.

Of course perhaps the survivors don’t need weapons as each one of them seems capable of holding off an attacker. One lady knocks an infected to the ground and stomps its head in. The infected themselves are supposedly mindless – except when it’s necessary for them to play dead, pretend to be a survivor, hide above drop ceilings and in toilet stalls, plan an ambush, operate doorknobs, etc.

Acting is serviceable at best but not truly awful. The swordplay in the movie is fairly inept and/or poorly filmed as are the rest of the generic action sequences.

If you haven’t caught the gist yet, this movie is really bad (though not as bad as Thunderstorm). It isn’t even worth for Seagal fans as he isn’t actually in much of the movie and when he is, he doesn’t do much.

People Watch: Look for Keith (The Thing) David and veteran soap opera actor Linden Ashby collecting paychecks by playing the military leaders.

Under Siege 2 – Do Not Get on That Train week

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This is Do Not Get on That Train week. Under Siege 2 is currently available on instant Netflix.

WATCH: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) – Rated R for strong violence and language.

“Action hero Steven Seagal returns as counterterrorist Casey Ryback. Now retired, he and his niece are headed west aboard the Grand Continental train when diabolical Travis Dane (Eric Bogosian) and his henchmen hijack the iron horse. Dane needs a mobile base to level the Eastern seaboard — starting with the Pentagon — using a secret government satellite. It is up to Ryback and a petrified porter (Morris Chestnut) to outwit the criminal genius.”

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captor speaking. There has been a slight change in your travel plans tonight. You have, you will note, been moved to the last two cars of the train for your own well-being. First, I would like to call your attention to the highly trained men with the automatic weapons in your cars. In the event of an emergency, they may be called upon to shoot you. Your safety IS our primary concern. However, if you try anything stupid, Federal Regulations require that I kill you.”

You have to love how far technology has advanced. At the beginning of this film, the military deploy a satellite that is capable of drilling down to look at a girl on the beach. Today I do that on my iPod. Admittedly my iPod does not have weapons but who knows what advances Apple will make in the next few years. As long as the weapons do not require Flash, it could happen.

Steven Siegal returns as cook Casey Ryback. The first Under Siege had wonderful fights in the USS Missouri (in actuality the USS Alabama but still pretty neat). This one has fights in and on a train – not as impressive but still fun. Steven Seagal still has good fight scenes here. His later direct-to-video films are often pretty poor – martial arts movies without much martial arts, what were they thinking?

Should Steven Seagal movies by their nature be held to a lower standard? Seagal films often have huge plotholes and this one is no exception. I suppose it is unfair to pick on Seagal specifically for this as it is a typical failing of martial arts movies in general.

Steven Seagal fans will notice a bit of footage reused from On Deadly Ground to simulate the destruction of a facility in China.

With a title like Under Siege 2 and the poster, you know that this is just going to be Die Hard on a Train.

The plot is simply ridiculous. For suspension of disbelief, a coincidence is acceptable but typically only one. Not only is Casey Ryback on the same train that the villain has planned for his mobile headquarters (meticulously and with some nonsense about having to keep moving to avoid being tracked) but also the only two individuals with the code for the satellite are also on the train and lovers to boot.

Eric Bogosian plays our ubervillain with a great deal of relish. His Travis Dane is no Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) but he has some wonderful bad guy speeches (see above). He actually comes across as a comic book villain but he is fun.

The more credible villain is Marcus Penn, played by Everett McGill (Dune, Silver Bullet) looking quite different than normal. Morris Chestnut plays the somewhat comic relief as a Porter caught up in all the heroics. Most recently he played Ryan Nichols on V.

Fans of Greys Anatomy will appreciate that a very young Katherine Heigl (Dr. Stevens on Anatomy) is the niece of Casey Ryback.

This is a fun action film with a lot of great stuntwork. I recommend it (barely) but you will have to leave your brain at the door as the plans of the ubervillain are almost Austin Powers comical.

For those of you with set top boxes, Netflix does stream this in HD.

People Watch: Veteran character actor Kurtwood Smith appears here as General Stanley Cooper. He would go on to greater fame as Reginald “Red” Forman on That 70s Show.