Review of Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) by Harry W — 31 Aug 2013

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory clarified quickly that it lacks the cleverness of the original.

For one thing, its characters are poor. Steven Seagal is forced to work with a lacklustre script which attempts to characterise Lt. Casey Ryback as a family man with issues as an uncle, and it deals with this by giving him forced internal drama that Steven Seagal isn't fit to deal with in an action film so he ends up leading his character into the dark territory of the film's title where the he seems to be portraying a character coming to terms with real life drama. But Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is not a real life film so why director Geoff Murphy fried to give it the slightest touch of one is beyond me and merely abysmal to the film's quality. And his performance is empty and routine, as if to suggest that Casey Ryback is overly confident about facing the terrorists, so much so that he just has to look at a gun, clarify to himself that yes it is in fact a gun, then softly point and pull the trigger. There is no grit to his performance, and no sign of the mannerisms that made him such a recognisable action star in the first place.

Matched up against him is the performance of Eric Bogosian as primary villain Travis Dane in a performance so monotonous and uninspired that it can't compare to his one-time appearance on the show Scrubs playing Dr. Cox's psychologist. Yet both performances are surprisingly similar, revealing him as a limited actor with the latter being superior. He's less of a villain in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, and more of a joke.

Morris Chestnut portrays a racial stereotype with little of comic relief intended for him ever becoming successful, since its mostly just excessive stereotypical language which becomes old faster than precedented and just a tedious addition to a failing cast.

The only cast member that really succeeds at all is Katherine Heigl in one of her significantly younger performances as she works through a flimsy script and weak character, providing good emotional articulation. She does a half decent job.

Also, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is largely bereft of the thrills of its predecessor because it clarifies the villain instantly when he's on screen, without allowing the sense of mystery to exist so that he could become uncovered later on. Without mystery or a story to wonder about, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is set up to fail.

And it does, because for one thing amongst average action sequences which despite featuring decent editing and interesting locations for the action to be set on is obvious signs of the green screen leaking into the shot with obvious visual effects, including explosions which go into slow motion while characters in the foreground move at their proper pace, removing whatever realism could come from a story about an orbiting satellite dish controlled via a train that has the power to cause earthquakes with lasers.

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory doesn't have a good start and deteriorates by the second, and it just feels forced without a good atmosphere or anyone to convince the viewer that an action film is occurring beyond their eyes.