Review of Belly of the Beast (2003) by Paul D — 06 Apr 2009

Okay, right off, any of the (many) Seagal fans reading this, who are familiar with his early work, you guys had better adjust those expectations right through the floor. That way you'll come into this having accepted that a DTV action movie surely won't be delivering very much action, and certainly not to a high standard. Do this for me and you should have a fucking great time with Belly of the Beast, which I know you are eager to watch.

Well don't let me stop you. That's all you needed to know. Go forth and enjoy yourself... or don't. Whatever. It's your loss, philistine.

...

Okay, now that those guys are gone, I do have a little bit more to say for those of you unphased by the prospect of having your expectations raised too high for this cheap and cheerful little gem to realistically deliver on them...

...Right, so, you're ready for this, right?

Okay, here it comes...

Belly of the Beast is a fucking AWESOME action film! There is a real display of showiness and style at work in the fight scenes. I guess working on a budget can do wonders for an action directors creativity, because some quick research tells me that the dude directing this has worked on everything from Hero & House of Flying Daggers to, uh, Dungeon Siege. Well, regardless, in Belly of the Beast this guy does himself proud, managing to get the best out of (a pretty fucking massive looking, I must say) Steven Seagal whenever he's on-screen (as well as doing a pretty great job at motivating the big guy's very-obviously-not-Steven-Seagal stunt doubles, who jump, twist, kick, and climb the shit out of everything in their path. Good job, guys).

No aikido in this one, by the way, our boy waves his arms around like Brucie motherfucking Chan or someone, kung fu-ing the shit out of an awful lot of unfortunate henchmen, who must regret having not studied harder at villain school. There's also some silly-great gunfights, at least one gratuitous forward roll (even more brilliant than you can imagine - watch for it during Seagal's cat-like break-in to some naked ladies house near the start), a bizarre sort of psychic showdown between buddhism and voodoo (yes, really), not to mention a slow-mo duel between some bullets and some arrows, and a pretty great sword fight too. Say it again? Belly of the Beast is fucking AWESOME!

...Okay, now I've ruined it all for you, because I have to be honest here... there isn't THAT much action. Although it never feels dragged out to the point that you're annoyed, it is, never the less, still obvious which scenes were thrown in to pad out the runtime and fill up the spaces between the scenes that Seagal actually appears in. There's a whole subplot involving some CIA dude assigned to watch out for our boy that really never seems to go anywhere, for instance.

Minor quibbles, to be honest, because I did still enjoy the splooge out of this film and I think you can too, distinguished reader. I just think it's better for everyone involved if you know what you're getting into. So, to sum up, yes, Belly of the Beast is fucking AWESOME, but it's also really not that great. So be sure to temper your expectations just right and there's a good chance you and Jake Hooper will get on like a voodoo doll on fiire (I don't know ifvoodoo dolls are really supposed to light on fire, but, as I recall, the one in Belly of the Beast couldn't get enough of that shit, so I'm still happy with myself for making the comparisson back there. But anyway...).

All clear? Solid.