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Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, a review by DJ Doena

January, 17th


Director: Geoff Murphy

Steven Seagal    ...    Casey Ryback
Eric Bogosian   ...    Travis Dane
Everett McGill   ...    Marcus Penn
Katherine Heigl   ...    Sarah Ryback
Morris Chestnut   ...    Bobby Zachs
Andy Romano   ...    Admiral Bates
Royce D. Applegate   ...    Ryback's Cook
Nick Mancuso   ...    Tom Breaker
Kurtwood Smith   ...    General Stanley Cooper

Synopsis: Casey and his niece Sarah are travelling by train across the United States. But aboard this train are also a crazy lunatic and a group of mercenaries who take over a highly secret and highly dangerous satellite that can destroy the entire west coast by causing earthquakes below the San Andreas Fault. Casey is the only one who can stop them before they kill millions.

My Opinion: Steven Seagal is no Bruce Willis but I still enjoy his action movies a lot. He kills ruthlessly and has cool knife-fighting skills. The general plot is pretty much a slightly adjusted template copy of Under Siege but I don't really care. It's just fun to watch.
This time was also the first time that the name Katherine Heigl rang a bell.

(From DJ Doena's movie watchings 2010 on January 26th, 2010)

The Terminator, a review by DJ Doena

February, 1st


Arnold Schwarzenegger   ...    The Terminator
Michael Biehn   ...    Kyle Reese
Linda Hamilton   ...    Sarah Connor
Paul Winfield   ...    Lieutenant Ed Traxler
Lance Henriksen   ...    Detective Hal Vukovich
Earl Boen   ...    Dr. Peter Silberman

Synopsis: Earth, 2029. The computer system Skynet is self-aware and highly intelligent. It was invented by men but it has wiped out nearly the entire human race. Shortly before its defeat it sends a Terminator back in time, a cyborg, human flesh over a metal endoskeleton. Its mission: To kill the mother of the resistance leader in the year 1984, before she gives birth to her son. But the resistance sends also someone back to protect her.

My Opinion: The original Terminator movie is a perfect example of a time loop. The fotograph Reese has is the same that Sarah gets at the end of the movie. Except for the logical hole that the one who wants prevent a change cannot travel back in time after the one who wants to change something, it's quite consistent. And it has aged suprisingly well. I had expected that the skeleton scenes would look rather lame comparing to today's FX but they weren't that bad. When the sekeleton was alone in the picture they were actually quite good, even when the full skeleton was in sight. Only when we see Kyle/Sarah and the skeleton they look rather bad.
I especially liked to hear all the one-liners again "for the first time". And I never even knew that "Come with me, if you want to live!" was even there in the first movie.

(From DJ Doena's movie watchings 2009 on February 2nd, 2009)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First Season marathon, a review by Achim

Queen's Gambit

Thank God episode 3 was just an intermediate slump. Also this episode was really good. They had fun dialog moments, a great action set piece with a terminator fight and some exposed terminator skull. What more can we ask for. Oh, and then there is "that 90210-guy" playing his part decently enough. The way he was introduced, by means of bringing someone back from a previous episode felt quite clever to me. And then there was grief counseling at school


John: "I call shotgun."
Cameron: "I call 9mm."
 

(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First Season marathon on January 20th, 2009)