Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil

North Korea is about to test a missile capable of reaching all of the US. The President (Peter Coyote) decides to send in SEAL team 1 to sabotage the missile. New intel forces him to change his mind and launch a pre-emptive strike. Four SEALs are left behind enemy lines to sit and wait for extraction. However they are found by the North Koreans.

This is a B action movie. The story is well and good for the limited movie. The production value is limited. The biggest problem is the editing of the movie. There are all kinds of crazy cheesy effects at work here. They have slo-mo fast-forward echoing effects with ethereal operatic music. Shaky cam is fine, but they shook way too much. The bad action scenes sucked out any possible fun from this movie.

Looks like some producers at Fox remembered they made a pretty good little military thriller a decade or so ago; that film was BEHIND ENEMY LINES, casting the unlikely Owen Wilson as a soldier stranded in a hostile country and forced to fight his way out with help from the reliable Gene Hackman.

BEHIND ENEMY LINES II: AXIS OF EVIL has absolutely NOTHING in common with that movie. Instead this is a dumb, offensive and blockheaded pseudo-thriller that manages to offend everybody it depicts, from the Asian stereotypes to the knuckle-dragging US military. The plot, in which a crack squad are sent behind enemy lines in North Korea to destroy a missile, is as dumb as it sounds and the film is loaded with errors, both factual and otherwise.

You know you're in trouble from the outset, with James Dodson's direction winning the difficult position of being the worst thing about the film (and when the script is this bad, that's an impressive achievement). Dodson appears to be on speed throughout, cutting like there's no tomorrow and going in for dodgy/crazy shaky-cam effects throughout. The result is a film that's very nearly unwatchable.

The acting is pitiful and you end up feeling sorry for the recognisable faces who've clearly fallen on hard times; among them are Keith David, Ben Cross and Peter Coyote, a trio of former stars who must be wondering what sins they committed in a past life in order for them to appear in this. The action scenes are among the worst I've seen and the whole patriotic flag-waving stuff is vomit-inducing indeed. Give it a miss!

You pick a DVD like this up off the 'discount rack' for 5.00 you don't expect much. But this was a surprisingly good little movie made on a shoestring budget that doesn't look it. I liked the original Behind the Lines well enough but this movie is just fine in its own right. The actors/soldiers are young and Hung-ho which you'd expect. The plot moves along and doesn't have every cliché you usually see coming a mile away. The action scenes with their jittery camera work are rapidly paced & well done in my view. The political side of the story looks professional and pretty believable. Having seen every great war movie there is many times over, I give this movie a solid thumbs up and definitely worth a look.

Pros: some really nice cinematography gave this film a hint of artistic credibility. Some OK action sequences. Performances aren't offensively bad, unlike the premise.

Cons: the TVesque use of sped up sequences and dodgy CGI are the downside to production. Only one female character. Typically ludicrous action film dialogue and overuse of flashbacks make this hard to watch while the plot is hard to stomach.

What more could you expect from US filmmakers during wartime than something to make you feel proud to be American and perhaps even join in the fight against fight evil? This time the evil doers are the North Koreans, who have developed an Intercontinental Ballistic missile (ICBM) which has the capability of delivering a WMD to American soil. And how dare they, when the US and her allies are the the only countries allowed to keep such weapons in the name of freedom! To remedy this a team of navy seals parachute into North Korea and then the film gets really tacky. The use of light filters in EVERY SINGLE SCENE in North Korea gives the country (and people) a colourless lifeless feel (because they are evil). The Nth Korean military are depicted first abusing civilians then committing war crimes. The seals are assisted by some South Korean soldiers sent to help them escape from 'behind enemy lines', who of course immediately begin taking orders from the yanks. All the while, back in the war room the president agonises over whether or not to drop a vast number of bombs on the Koreans because unlike them, he is not evil.

This movie was well enough put together to be enjoyable for anyone so brain dead they can swallow the whole flag waving god bless America rubbish without firing the odd neuron in protest. However if you prefer your war drama to be based on reality rather than fantasy, just re-screen a copy of The Thin Red Line and pretend they never made this film.

The 1998 titled Beyond Enemy Lines was a very good movie with excellent production standards, character development, story, and the patriotism appropriate to a military movie. B.E.L. Axis of Evil has none of this.

Director James Dodson is perhaps the poster boy for today's airhead directors, a heavy dose of LSD along with the morning Starbucks. The first 50 minutes jumps around like Access Hollywood in fast-motion, none of it amounting to anything. The story doesn't come into focus until the final 40 minutes, then being only meaningless drivel. Making matters worse is Dodson's senseless trick of filming sequences thru color filters, the first being an orange filter for the South Korea scenes. Hey, guess what? South Korea is no more orange than South Dakota, you dope! Other scenes are through red filters, blue, et cetera. Dodson must think these tricks cover over the simple fact that he has no clue as to how to make a movie.

In the introductory voice over, the movie absolutely trashes the thousands of American soldiers who served and lost their lives in the Korean War 50 years ago. I think this was not so much Media Spin as that the filmmakers attended public schools and might have been taught doctored-history. They seem unaware that America was fighting not so much North Korea but Red China and Russia, or that General MacArthur had pushed deep into North Korea before the war ended.

I confess to owning 200 shares of stock in 20th Century-Fox; hence my sky high and bloated vote of 2. A zero would be more honest.