Behind the Times
American intel have discovered that North Korea appear to have a 3 stage nuclear weapon which means they could fire on America. President Adair T. Manning (Peter Coyote) and his war office decide they need to act before this ever happens and sends a group of Navy SEALS on a mission into North Korea. But things don't go as planned and a small group get stranded behind enemy lines where they will not only have to try and get to safety but first complete their mission to prevent the possibility of war.
I didn't care a great deal for the first "Behind Enemy Lines" as I found it nothing but a glorified advert thanks to the styling which was the sort of thing you would see in an advert for trainers. It is because of that "Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil" dropped right down my list of movies I needed to watch and it was only because I had a spare hour and a half and just wanted something dumb to watch that I gave it a chance. Well "Behind Enemy Lines II" was the poor movie I had anticipated but one which ironically is so wrapped up in dialogue that it spoils what could have been simple entertainment.
So what I expected was to watch some Navy SEALS behind enemy lines going all action Jackson in a jingoistic manner and yes you do get that and when it focuses on that it is mildly entertaining. It basically delivers what you expect and whilst it doesn't do anything you won't have seen in other movies is reasonably entertaining.
But what we get is a hell of a lot of dialogue from a build up which gives us the history of trouble in North Korea to the suits around the war table debating what the course of action will be. It is frankly boring and all you want is the action of these Navy SEALS doing military stuff. What is more disappointing is that when it comes to those war office scenes we have the likes of Peter Coyote and Bruce McGill barking their dialogue across the table, barking is also what you get from Keith David who appears in flashbacks as a drill sergeant. The knock on effect of this is that the younger actors who play the SEALS end up anonymous as we don't really get to know them.
What this all boils down to is that "Behind Enemy Lines II" is in truth a disappointing movie as it appears to be simple to make an entertaining action movie but this messes up by trying to thrown in meaningful dialogue which ends up not meaningful at all.
