Steven Segal has very little to offer in the acting stakes. Like Jean-Claude Van Damme, he's a one-dimensional tough-guy: Bruce Willis without the gags and fags: the sort of right-minded no-nonsense hard-case that gives most normal men an inferiority complex, and feel guilty that they don't spend more time at the gym. It's down to the director to build enough interest around him during any movie within which he stars, to offset his lack of talent. Mostly, they don't work, unless you happen to be a fan of up-tight testosterone-topped Alpha males.
'Under Siege' does work. I suspect that is because Segal is outshone by the real star of the movie - the colossal American Battleship. Considering that these vessels were the very last of the WW2 giants, they have been a very under-utilised asset either from the standpoint of action movie or even documentary. Capital ships really were amazingly beautiful works of engineering art. Whatever one's views upon war may be, they have a grace and symmetry unequalled since the days of sail. And if I have a complaint about this movie, it is that we see too little of the ship, especially whole-vessel photography. What we do see is pretty unimaginative, and I suspect that this is because most of the shooting took place on a retired vessel that was permanently at anchor. Even so, I think a lot more could have been done.
There is a very good cast adding additional tonnage to an othewise buoyant story. Tommy Lee Jones plays a manifestly deranged bad guy, leading a gang of sundry cut-throats who have hijacked the warship.
Otherwise it's Segal's slaughter by stealth pass-card through and through. You must have seen it a dozen times by now.
An additional and largely unnecessary dimension is added by a pneumatic blonde bimbo. She is (literally) a piece of party furniture and rises out of a cake with her flamboyant - one might even say bovine - assets presented to full effect. Her acting abilities are even worse than Segal's, and as she spends much of the movie in his company, he sometimes begins to look competent if only by contrast.
And that's about it. Bad people get shot, stabbed, blown up and winnowed down to the their homicidal and treasonable leaders for the final and inevitable denouement. There's an equally inevitable heavy-rock incidental soundtrack to emphasise testosterone issues. And the all-American way prevails.
But the movie is good fun for all of that. You are left in no doubt from the DVD cover that it's a Steven Segal vehicle. Just don't expect many surprises.
'Under Siege' does work. I suspect that is because Segal is outshone by the real star of the movie - the colossal American Battleship. Considering that these vessels were the very last of the WW2 giants, they have been a very under-utilised asset either from the standpoint of action movie or even documentary. Capital ships really were amazingly beautiful works of engineering art. Whatever one's views upon war may be, they have a grace and symmetry unequalled since the days of sail. And if I have a complaint about this movie, it is that we see too little of the ship, especially whole-vessel photography. What we do see is pretty unimaginative, and I suspect that this is because most of the shooting took place on a retired vessel that was permanently at anchor. Even so, I think a lot more could have been done.
There is a very good cast adding additional tonnage to an othewise buoyant story. Tommy Lee Jones plays a manifestly deranged bad guy, leading a gang of sundry cut-throats who have hijacked the warship.
Otherwise it's Segal's slaughter by stealth pass-card through and through. You must have seen it a dozen times by now.
An additional and largely unnecessary dimension is added by a pneumatic blonde bimbo. She is (literally) a piece of party furniture and rises out of a cake with her flamboyant - one might even say bovine - assets presented to full effect. Her acting abilities are even worse than Segal's, and as she spends much of the movie in his company, he sometimes begins to look competent if only by contrast.
And that's about it. Bad people get shot, stabbed, blown up and winnowed down to the their homicidal and treasonable leaders for the final and inevitable denouement. There's an equally inevitable heavy-rock incidental soundtrack to emphasise testosterone issues. And the all-American way prevails.
But the movie is good fun for all of that. You are left in no doubt from the DVD cover that it's a Steven Segal vehicle. Just don't expect many surprises.