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Under Siege 2: Dark Territory [Blu-ray]
Theatrical Release: July 14, 1995
DVD Release: December 17, 1997
Blu-ray Release: September 2, 2008
Director: Geoff Murphy
Writers: J.F. Lawton & Richard Hatem
Rating: R
Reviewer: Eric
Under Siege 2 is the follow up to the classic 1992 action flick Under Siege.
Steven Seagal made an ordinary chief look like one tough son of a bitch. In the
sequel it seems everything good about the first film has vanished and Seagal is
starting to look bored, a modern trait he has been showing in all of his
direct-to-video films.
It’s hard to sit through Under Siege 2. Nothing really excited me. At least with
Under Siege there was some entertainment. The second movie feels more like a
direct-to-video release than some of Seagal’s recent releases. I was only
motivated to watch this film for two reasons. A) It is a Steven Seagal movie B)
The action sequences are decent/laughable.
For a film that was given the subtitle Dark Territory you would expect a badass
rollercoaster of a ride movie. Either the rollercoaster is closed for
maintenance or that subtitle was added to grab some attention. Me personally I
would have rather the movie been called Under Siege 2, period.
Former Navy SEAL Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal) and his niece Sarah (Katherine
Heigl) board a train to California. As fast as they board the train is hijacked
by terrorists, led by Travis Dane (Eric Bogosian). Dane is a former government
employee who built a satellite that is capable of causing earthquakes at any
target.
Travis Dane uses the train as a moble command center and he uses the destination
to his advantage because he passes through what is known as dark territory, a
stretch of track that can not be tracked. Dane offers to stop what he is doing
if the government pays him one billion dollars. Now it is up to Ryback to foil
their plans.
This marks one of the last movies that made it into theaters with Seagal’s name
as the lead. As I said before it is nothing to brag about but it does have some
decent action sequences. The only reason these scenes are decent is the fact
that they are complete jokes. All of the credibility Under Siege had in the
first film is only seen during two action sequences. Trust me I don’t need to
tell you where they’re at, you can spot them after watch this movie.
Under Siege 2 crashes onto the screen in 1080p high definition. The image for
the most part is clear, but there are places where it is lacking, mainly the
dark parts. When the screen isn’t flooded with darker colors you can see bold,
solid colors and even small details like raindrops. All of the actors look good
throughout the film, though just like I said before you can see small problems
when darkness falls onto the screen.
A Dolby Digital 5.1 lossless soundtrack is featured in Under Siege 2. The movie
is loud, sometimes too loud. Instead of staying at one volume Under Siege 2
seems to switch quite often between sound volumes. Gun shot sounds are also
muffled (for the most part), giving the movie a DVD quality sound during gun
battles.
The only extras on this disc are standard definition trailers for Under Siege,
Under Siege 2, The Glimmer Man, Fire Down Below, On Deadly Ground, Out for
Justice, and Hard to Kill. You would think high definition trailers would have
made the cut on this blu-ray but no, all we get are the DVD extras, directly
added to make this disc look like it has some special features.
Final Verdict
There is a reason why they never made an Under Siege 3. It took them three years
to make the second movie in the Under Siege series and all we got is this joke
of a film. If you were to watch this movie as a joke then it isn’t bad, but if
you don’t then you will see too many problems, just like I did.
Rating
Movie: 6 out of 10
Picture: 6 out of 10
Audio: 4 out of 10
Extras: 0 out of 10
Overall
4 out of 10
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory Trailer
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