martial arts master steven seagal ( not to mention director ! ) has built a career out of playing an allegedly fictitious martial arts superman who never gets hurt in fights , talks in a hushed tone , and squints at any sign of danger . 
he's also the most consistent individual in hollywood today , since all his movies suck . 
they basically represent his egotisitical tendencies about his art ( that is , martial art ) . 
i'm sure the guy's good , and he seems like a nice guy on talk shows , although a tad haughty , but these movies he makes are all the same : a guy who is basically indestructable , is maybe wounded supposedly mortally , then comes back with a vengeance and goes buddha on all the baddies asses ( although i kinda liked " under siege " ) . 
of course , this one , as a change , has a " message " that is drilled into our mind . . . of 
course , after he blows up a lot of stuff and kills a bunch of people . 
so why do i watch his crap ? 
i usually don't . 
i will never , and you can hold me to this , i will never pay to see this man's movies , unless , and only unless , he's in a supporting role ( i . e . 
 " executive decision " ) and i'd definitely pay if he dies ( i . e . 
 " executive decision " ) . 
but this one has a special place in my heart . 
this doesn't mean it's good or that i even liked it . 
this was the last movie i watched with my deceased uncle , and we had one hell of a time ripping it apart a la " mystery science theatre 3000 , " and this was a couple years before i had heard of " mystery science theatre 3000 . " 
in this one , seagal plays a worker for a mining factory set in alaska and run by the greased-up typical shallow villain , this time played by an oscar-winner to give the movie some more clout - michael caine . 
it seems that caine wants to do something with his oil factory that includes him dumping oil all over inuit land . 
around the 20-30 minute point , seagal speaks up to him in what seems to be the typical speech to all the vain entrepeneurs ( what with his new " fire down below , " another " message film " ) , and caine has him bumped off . . . or 
does he ? 
seagal is rescued by some inuits , and falls in love with one of them , played by joan chen , who can act , hypothetically , but , for some reason , not here . 
one of caine's cliched henchmen ( played here with a lot of overacting by john c . mcginley ) shoots the cheif of the inuit clan , and chen and seagal go on a voyage to take down the oil factory . . . literally , 
of course . 
at one point , seagal gives a wonderfully hysterical speech about how he doesn't have any options but blow stuff up . 
he even goes as far as to say , " i don't want to kill someone , " and in the same breath , he asks some guy where the arsenal is . 
i have no problem with violence . 
i'm a huge john woo fan , but he paints his films with suspense , skill , style , depth , characterization , and just plain cool violence . 
in the films of seagal , the suspense mainly consists of the baddie attacking him stupidly , and him either wounding or killing them . 
at some points , they use the cliche of the talking villain , where the villain has the advantage , can shoot seagal , but begins talking by either telling him his big secret plan , or saying a corny line , to which seagal says something hokey back , and has had enough time to devise of a way to do away with them , and does . 
this would be okay if there were any suspense or if it didn't take itself seriously at all , like in the case of this summer's " con air . " 
but seagal is serious about his skill , and of course , his message . 
i wouldn't mind if this was a message film in the way that they present it to you with evidence . 
but seagal has no idea how to present a film where the message is subtle , not pounded into the viewer's mind . 
the villain is totally shallow and cartoonish , thus we can't take him and his motives seriously , and while seagal talks about being kind to the environment , he also goes ahead and blows up a square mile of rig , and kills some workers who were just doing his job . 
then at the end , he spends a good 10 minutes giving a speech , just in case you didn't get the message from the trailers . 
what seagal doesn't realize is that no one takes his films seriously ( although maybe a couple do ) and any message he has is no only redundant , but doesn't comfortably fit in his film , which is filled to the brim with hokey violence , crap suspense , stupid melodrama , and characters who have about as much emotional depth as a petri dish . 
as far as seagal and his acting , he's rather boring . 
he squints , he kills . 
period . 
nothing else . 
oh , yeah , there's corny one-liners ( " i'm gonna reach out and touch someone ! " ) . 
of course , he's the star , and we're supposed to root for him and all , so he makes all the villains unbelievably stupid and a bunch of jerks . 
michael caine , who's a great actor , is just supposed to yell and look cold . 
he does it well , i guess , but this is no " alfie . " 
of coure , no one was expecting that caliber of performance from him . 
his big henchman , john c . mcginley is kinda boring as well , but is not horrible . 
and we even get a small performance from that god of drill sergeants on celluloid , r . lee ermey ( from " full metal jacket " ) as a hired assasin squad leader who gets to say the obligatory speech about how dangerous seagal is , just for the movie trailers and for seagal's ego . 
and also , look for billy bob thornton as one of ermey's assasins . 
anyway , to conclude this all , to judge one of seagal's movies is to judge all of them ( except for " under siege " and " executive decision , " though the latter is not really a " seagal movie " ) . 
they all have this same formula , they all have the same action , same villain , same plot , but this one has that message , which makes it more excrucitating to watch . 
i mean , if you do rent it , and i don't reccomend you do , make sure you just skip the last 10 minutes . 
but i have to put it to seagal for creating a film so bad , that the last film i viewed with my uncle was a pleasurable one . 
my ( extra star for the fun it is to watch and mock )