When terrorists take the celebrants at a resort opening hostage and demand a multi-million-dollar ransom, Marine Joe Linwod (Ted DiBiase, Jr.), who was attending the shindig with his wife, leaps into action.

CRITIQUE

I enjoyed The Marine, the low-rent 2006 flick that represented the first (failed) attempt to turn WWE superstar John Cena into an action star. Yeah, the movie’s dumb (very, very dumb), and Cena has the charisma and acting chops of a cinderblock, but the movie’s fun in a dopey, brain-dead sort of way. It’s easy to imagine it sitting on a shelf between VHS copies Commando and Raw Deal in the sort of rental store that (unfortunately) doesn’t exist anymore, and in this case that’s a compliment.

This in-name-only direct-to-disc sequel, which represents an attempt to turn WWE superstar Ted DiBiase, Jr., into an action hero, isn’t much fun. Yeah, it’s dumb, and DiBiase is possibly even more wooden than Cena (imagine if someone crossed Josh Hartnett with Channing Tatum and you’ll have an idea of DiBiase’s skills), but rather than hark back to the Golden Age of cheeseball action fare, The Marine 2 falls more in line with the endless rip-offs that have followed in the wake of Die Hard. It’s lazy and uninspired, seemingly tailored only to hardcore DiBiase fans and/or action fans willing to sit through anything.

Someone involved either chose to ignore or was unaware of the maxim that an action movie top-lined by a dull star can/should be elevated by the casting of a scene-stealer as the villain. It worked in Under Siege--a shameless Die Hard knockoff that nevertheless turned out to be a pretty good movie--with Tommy Lee Jones more than making up for Steven Seagal’s ineptitude. And it worked in The Marine, where Robert Patrick’s rampant scenery-chewing compensated for Cena’s laughably earnest dullness.

But here you get Temuera Morrison, who unwisely underplays his role as the terrorist leader. This isn’t a Rohmer film, for cripes’ sake; underplaying is the last thing anyone involved should do. A movie like this demands a colorful villain, but Morrison is blander than stale water. Then again, the script doesn’t give Morrison a whole hell of a lot to work with. His character isn’t menacing in the least, never once coming across as any sort of credible threat.

Furthermore, his motives never become clear. There’s some talk about some sort of “tribute” bandied about, some sort of compensation Morrison wants in return for allowing Whitey to come in and sully his homeland, but it’s never really explained or clarified, leaving the character just another faceless guy with a dark complexion, a gun, and a chip on his shoulder.

Morrison isn’t alone when it comes to being ineffectual. Lara Cox, who plays DiBiase’s wife, is terminally chirpy and bubbly; she’s supposed to be a highly successful PR agent, but she comes across as someone who’d be more at home delivering the weekend weather on a local cable-access news program. (The performance is so annoyingly off-tone I was actually glad when Morrison slaps her late in the game, and I don’t think that’s the intent.)

And if you can believe it, Michael Rooker--Michael Rooker!--sleepwalks through his role as an ex-Army demolitions expert who runs boat tours around the island on which the movie is set. (The movie was shot in Thailand, but certain things make me think it’s possibly set in the Philippines.) C’mon, you hire Michael Rooker to get pissed, yell, and throw stuff, not to silently contemplate his station in life. Hiring Rooker to not emote is like hiring Jessica Alba to emote--you just don’t do it.

Okay, so the acting leaves a lot to be desired, but what about the action? Well, it’s nothing to get excited about. Director Roel Reine (who’s been in the business for two decades and still hasn’t done anything anyone has heard of) fails to cover the action in any sort of logical way, then further botches it by muddying the editing; some guy shoots at some random thing, some other random thing blows up, repeat. And speaking of things blowing up, most of the explosions are cheap CG creations, poorly rendered (they look like your generic canned-gasoline explosions) and integrated into the live photography.

Here’s the bottom line: it looks like no one here really gave a damn or put much effort into their work. The plot’s recycled, the acting is uniformly bad, and the action is dull. And I haven’t really touched on the script, which uses several jumps-forward to gloss over problems no one could solve (such as how DiBiase and his partner manage to escape from all those guys with grenade launchers during the prologue, or why seventy-five percent of the terrorists simply vanish when the third act rolls around) and features about as much logic as an episode of The Monkees (why does the national news service of whatever country the movie is set in broadcast in English?), but I don’t think there’s any real need.

Unlike its predecessor, The Marine 2 doesn’t supply any fun, intentional or otherwise.

THE VIDEO

The 1.85:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--offers no surprises (much like the movie itself); this is a direct-to-disc cheapie and looks it. Close-ups can look good, and some of the brighter Thai vegetation pops, but the image wavers between reasonably sharp and unnaturally soft (at times from shot to shot in any given scene), and there’s an awful lot of noise on display, especially in darker scenes (which comprise roughly half of the movie).

THE AUDIO

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track offers a slicker, more polished aural experience than most direct-to-disc titles, but someone thought the dialogue scenes should be pin-drop quiet and the action punishingly loud. Sure, not being able to understand the dialogue isn’t exactly a bad thing, but having it be swallowed by the mix also isn’t a good thing, nor was my constantly fumbling to adjust the volume. But the entire soundstage is put to good use, and there’s enough deep bass action to rattle windows in houses across the street.

French, Portuguese, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are also included; English SDH, Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

All of the extras here--which don’t amount to much and have a distinct pulled-from-an-EPK feel--are presented in high-def.

Village Virtuoso: The Final Fight (5 minutes) covers the creation of the movie’s climactic showdown.

The Last Resort: Inside the Terrorist Siege (3 minutes) covers the creation of the scene in which the terrorists make their first appearance.

Building a Legacy: Ted’s Story (5 minutes) offers a short bio of the movie’s star.

Play by the Roels: Inside the Production (3 minutes) looks at Roels’s hands-on directorial style.

Production Paradise: Filming in Thailand (4 minutes) covers the shoot’s locations.

East Meets West: Muay Thai Fight (5 minutes) covers the creation of one of the movie’s hand-to-hand action scenes. (Thanks to Roels, this fight looks like a Power Rangers outtake.)

Muay Thai Fight Outtakes (7 minutes) is a collection of raw footage from the above fight.

Also included are some deleted and extended scenes (12 minutes), which were most likely cut because they involve DiBiase delivering dialogue and/or attempting to emote.

Making the Cut: Deleted Shots Montage (6 minutes) is a compilation of unused shots/alternate angles; highlights include DiBiase knocking hapless locals into the water as he flees from Morrison and DiBiase reacting in no way whatsoever as numerous explosions and squibs are set off all around him. (Much of this footage illustrates the willy-nilly manner in which the movie was edited; a couple of glaring continuity errors would have been erased had a few of these shots remained in the final cut.)

FINAL THOUGHTS