For Walker Fans Only
Capt. Ranger Cordell Walker (Chuck Norris) and the Texas Rangers have their hands full. To start with they are trying to track down a missing government weapon which ties in to a murder and in turn ties into a missing teen who has a crime syndicate after him. Plus one of their team comes under suspicion when a woman he was with the night before shows up dead.
From memory, around the time Chuck Norris started appearing in the TV series "Walker, Texas Ranger" was the time I switched from mainly watching TV shows to watching movies. As such I have never watched a single episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger" and that is a bit of an issue if you choose to watch "Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire" as it takes it for granted you are already familiar with the characters, their personal circumstances and what they do. At the same time it also seems to take for granted that you are familiar with how a typical episode works from the way a story is built to highlighting little details.
Now maybe for fans of Chuck Norris and the TV show this TV movie works, maybe there is enjoyment in seeing Walker and his team going after some Koreans who are highly skilled in martial arts fighting. But for the non-fan this TV movie ends up spluttering along with scenes laden in dialogue which seem to be there to draw out a small story. These drawn out scenes are then interwoven with some snippets of flashy editing to try and inject speed but never succeeds. But on top of this you have the gang of Koreans whose martial arts skills which sees them leaping across cars really stick out and feel out of place against everything else. In fact a lot of the big piece action ends up sticking out against the mundane nature of most of the movie.
What this all boils down to is that "Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire" is simply a TV movie for those who loved the TV series. For those who attempt to watch this without having watched the TV series it is a slog with a storyline which feels incredibly drawn out.