User reviews

Oh dear! What can I say about Half Past Dead? I was really disappointed in it. I was thinking....A Steven Seagal movie! Cool! We'll get to see him kick people and flip people and break bones. We might even get to see him have a stick fight with somebody! Excellent!

However, I was in for a rude awakening. This film can be summed up as follows:

Take an episode of the A-Team, remove the lovable and roguish characters such as Murdoch, Hannibal, Mr T and Face. Then get a writer/director to pen a plot even Ed Wood would be ashamed of and who's too big a fan of The Matrix and John Woo movies for his own good. Throw in a bunch of people with really bad acting ability and who don't have real names. Finally, add in a main star who's getting saggy around the midriff and doesn't appear to be able to do his own stunts anymore.

The result? Half Past Dead. An action movie so ridiculous that it at least made me smile right the way through. The plot holes are stupendously, glaringly large - for example, prisoners who, when the jail is invaded, fight the invaders rather than attempting to escape. Or how about the prison itself, which has an armoury that contains heavy machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers? You also have a helicopter (bearing a striking resemblance to a Huey) with some kind of video game machinegun mounted in the nose.

Then there's Seagal himself. I like the guy. He CAN fight. He's even witty in a way that Jean-Claude Van Damme will never be. But all through the movie I kept hoping for that one great, defining fight scene. Never happened. Instead we got people firing guns a lot and not hitting a whole Hell of a lot. I mean, when someone runs down a narrow corridor and you fire a sub-machinegun at them, there isn't a whole lot of places the bullets can go other than down the corridor and into the target. Yet somehow they miss? Even the A-Team would cringe at this foolishness. And then when it gets to any kind of one-on-one physical stuff, we get treated to a shabby Matrix rip-off, without the benefit of bullet-time. People getting kicked twenty feet through the air and sundry other ludicrous acrobatic nonsense.

C'mon Steven, you're better than this. Your career can't be over. Say it ain't so!

This is instantly forgettable (except I'm forcing myself to remember for the purposes of this review) and if you watch it, try to find it amusing in an A-Team kind of way. But I doubt it'll be high on anyone's "re-watchable" list. Out for Justice this ain't. More like Out to Lunch.

Truly, Steven Seagal has nothing better to do with his time than sharing screen time with wannabe actors/rappers. Clearly, this was one of those films which had no real point to it other than trying to appeal to a certain demographic in hopes of making a few bucks. One has to wonder what a person was thinking when the idea of investing in this film came. Anyway, this was just a another reason why Seagal is past his prime, and should try playing quirky roles as opposed to being a tough guy or something. It's hard to say anything else about this movie, considering very little care was put into it.

Loud and multiple bangs for your bucks. Quite tolerable. After flatlining for twenty minutes an FBI agent(Steven Seagal)feels bullet proof and infiltrates a crime syndicate and lands in the New Alcatraz. His mission is to rescue a death row inmate and ends up thwarting a plot to recover stolen gold bricks. The typical Seagal martial arts is coupled with some moderately impressive F/X to hold your attention. The cast is talented as diverse and includes: Nia Peeples, Ja Rule, Morris Chestnut, Claudia Christian and Stephen Cannell. I find Peeples to be one sexy villian...she always seems to impress me! Not the best or worse Seagal flick and it helps to have very few dull moments. A big thumbs up for an FBI guy that rides the flatline.

Yeah, a long time ago it turned into a tourist attraction. Now it's a prison again. Kind of. Well, it's more like an airport mixed together with a junior high school but there are lots of guys running around wearing orange jumpsuits, so I guess in that way it's like a prison. Not really though. When Sasha, Steven Seagal's character, is being admitted into prison, he's standing shackled in line and wanders over to a different line so he can talk to his friend, like he's in line for the security check at the airport. Then before too long he and his friend are throwing punches, smacking around a couple of security guards.

Let me tell you something. You assault a corrections officer in a federal prison, they'll shoot you on the spot. Ja Rule would have been shot about 30 times before he threw his second punch. Oh, and there are guys wearing beanies and bandanas and whatnot. In prison. Federal prison.

You can't dress like that at most high schools in America.

Speaking of Ja Rule, I have to say that the person who probably enjoyed his performance more than anyone else on earth, including Ja Rule himself, had to have been 50 Cent. Just before I watched this movie I saw one of those shows on TV about the greatest celebrity feuds ever, and like number 7 or 8 was this rivalry between 50 Cent, who had lived the thug life for real, and Ja Rule. Who had not. Every time I saw Ja Rule on screen the only thing I could picture was 50 Cent laughing his ass off. Ja Rule looks like a rowdy 9-year-old every time he appears on screen.

Anyway, getting back to the plot. It's funny. Sasha is an FBI agent working undercover and he agrees to let himself be sentenced to prison so he can get behind the criminal organization. He's sentenced to five years, and that old line between determination and stupidity instantly vanishes. Nothing else in the movie matters after that, it becomes a meaningless string of action sequences, most of which aren't even well choreographed.

Oh, how about this, a helicopter crashes through the roof of "New Alcatraz" at one point, accidentally freeing all of the inmates. And what do they do? They all run out of their cells and play basketball in the middle of the cell block. Without so much as a basket. They had a ball, but it doesn't matter. The scene is so stupid they might as well have been playing hopscotch.

So some guy is being sentenced to be the first person ever to be executed in Alcatraz's state of the art execution chamber, evidently not for stealing $200 million dollars in gold, but for not telling where it was hidden once he was caught.

Hey, good thinking, people. If you can't get information out of someone, kill them. That's a great way to learn the truth! So some gang breaks into the prison planning to stop the execution and get the location of the $200 million for themselves.

Oh and the $200 million is in gold bricks. I doubt they thought ahead to how difficult it would be to turn that into exchangeable currency.

There's also the issue of the warden at the prison. He's some tough-talking vato who thinks he's a hardcore chollo from the barrio, which reminds me of a joke. I saw this comedian once talking about people in California who talk all tough calling each other ese and homes and all kinds of other such nonsense. These people go to Mexico, the comedian says, and they're like, "Oh my god! People LIVE there? That's like, a total shack!"

The best is when the United States Supreme Court Justice arrives and this guy tells her that her men can't carry their guns inside his prison, "I don't care if she IS a United States Supreme Court Justice!"

This woman could squish him like a grape and he thinks he's in charge. Ha.

And by the way, the Supreme Court Justice that gets taken as a hostage in the movie tells the bad guy that she is 53. That's a year younger than Steven Seagal. I just thought that was funny.

The only good scene in the movie is the one in the prison where Ja Rule is getting slapped around the prison like a sack of cotton balls by this little Asian woman. That was the funniest thing I've seen in a movie in a long, long time.

You know, I work for the company that produced this film (which I why I watched it), and I still don't have a single positive thing to say about it, except, of course, for that one scene with Ja Rule getting spanked by that Asian woman.

So read my review of Malena and you will see how strongly I sometimes disagree with professional film critics like Roger Ebert, but in his review of this movie Ebert wrote something that I agreed with as much as anything else he's ever written:

"I imagine the flywheels at the MPAA congratulating each other on a good day's work as they rated 'Half Past Dead' PG-13, after giving the anti-gun movie 'Bowling for Columbine' an R."

Way to go, guys.

Awful, just awful. I honestly couldn't finish it. Ya, I know it's pure fluff. Just an ego stroke for Mr. Seagal. I've seen better action on a kindergarten playground and, better acting. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish gouging out my eyes.

The best thing about the movie is the name, as it both describes the plot and the acting. At least they cannot say they didn't warn you... Kind of like the button labeled, "Don't push this".

Segal must have run out of things that move like planes, trains, and ships but the plot remains the same. Under cover guy who fights slowly, but still beats like 40 mercenary types and doesn't even blink when doing so. What amazes me is that Segal is now as big as a barn and the bad guys still cannot hit him in a hallway with a machine gun and 50 clips of ammo. Where do all these bullets actually go to? The only redeeming feature of this movie is watching Nia Peeples pound Ja Rule (real name Jeffrey Atkins doesn't quite sound so punk) into the floor. I could spend days watching that woman kick her foot over her shoulder like that... especially wearing an outfit like that! It was just a bonus watching Jeffy get is *ss kicked, and fun hoping one of those kicks actually landed. Sorry, it's just time we get stupid wannabe tough guy can't act rappers out of the movies. PLEEEEEASE! Who came up with idea anyway? I'd lay odds it was the person who decided that Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore would pass as witty athletic Angels.

The only surprising twist in this movie is that they don't do the politically correct thing and have Jeffy come in and save the day. No doubt if Snoop (otherwise known by his momma as Calvin Broadus which again doesn't sound so cool when you refer to him as Cal) had been in the movie, he'd throw some signs down on her and probably saved Segal's life or something.

The story is a cool concept, but the choices for the acting's sake weren't cool at all. Ja Rule was an ignorant cocky character but Seagul was actual very likable. I felt as though this film doesn't get the respect it deserves because Steven Seagul was in it. The dialogue was mediocre, some parts though were really random though. The scene where "Twitch" blows up the door seemed dumb. As well as the scene where Steve and Morris fight in the chains. And did anyone else notice that no one ever hit the bullets they shot? Anyway, the female who played the Supreme Court Justice member was actually enjoyable to watch.

All in all, Half Past Dead is just mindless fun, pretty good.

7/10

Imagine a film executive looking at the Lethal Weapon duo of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover and saying 'Let's copy that formula, except make it suck.'

Seagal is fat and tired and is too old for this shit, Ja Rule tries to look menacing and crazy eyed but just looks and sounds stupid.

What happened Steven?

'Half Past Dead' is high on action & energy, thus, delivering what it promised: Tough Entertainment.

'Half Past Dead' Synopsis: A man who goes undercover in a hi-tech prison to find out information to help prosecute those who killed his wife. While there he stumbles onto a plot involving a death-row inmate and his $200 million stash of gold.

'Half Past Dead' is time-pass entertainment. Its nothing legendary, but fairly engaging nonetheless. The Action-Sequences are energetic & leave a pretty good impact. The Screenplay is fair. Don Michael Paul's Direction is good.

Performance-Wise: Steven Seagal is apt for this role. Ja Rule is okay. Morris Chestnut is sincere. Others lend the required support.

On the whole, 'Half Past Dead' is certainly a watchable action flick.

Half past dead was your typical martial arts, segal effort. All action and very little in the way of story development. But then again that is generally the norm with all martial arts/kung fu flicks. but what makes half past dead such a terrible film are the acting, the action sequences, which in contrast to under siege were rather poor(which was a good film) and that some of the dialogue was almost painfully laughable to hear. I love all types of music, but the music that was used in the film-whilst I like a bit of hip hop, was just too loud.

And even though it is supposed to be a so-called martial arts film, it is heavily crammed with characters played by Ja-Rule and Morris Chestnut for example using ammo and guns against each other. and the rather experienced and talented Tony Plana in his pre-Ugly Betty days, hams it up as an unconvincing villain.

This is just so bad, it is beyond god awfully rubbish

Say what you will about this movie, but it pleasantly surprised me. Sure, it has millions of cliches and isn't very original, but it was a good movie, in my opinion. Ja Rule and Seagal worked well together. There was actually some emotions in a Seagal movie, that shocked me by surprise. Pretty good action sequences and lots of gunfire and explosives, what more can you expect out of an action film. Don't believe all the negative reviews until you've seen it. You will either love it or hate it, but at least give it a view before you knock it. 7 out of 10 stars for me.

Half Past Dead marks the beginning of the Seagal straight to DTV era. This film has Seagal as an undercover FBI agent in New Alcatraz. Surrounded by rappers in this film it is a bit cringeworthy seeing Mr Seagal trying to act like these! Fight scenes are a bit disappointing here and anytime there is a shot of Seagal running it is clearly done by a stunt double. Morris Chestnut who starred with Seagal in Under Siege 2 is the main bad guy and puts in a performance worthy of a better film. All things aside Half Past Dead is still enjoyable in its own way. It is still fun to see Seagal saying things like "I am a bad maaan", and also being the worlds toughest man his character flat lines for 22 minutes but recovers fine with no brain damage or lasting side effects! Things like these always make a Seagal film enjoyable. If i want to switch my brain off after a hard day at work and watch something that puts a smile on my face Mr Seagal's films always entertain. And do the trick. Half Past Dead is big dumb and at times a lot of fun.

Two rules to go by are: Movies made by Franchise Pictures, or distributed by Screen Gems, are movies to avoid. This movie was made by Franchise Pictures AND distributed by Screen Gems! Not only that, but it has Steven Seagal - it's hard to believe that ten years or so ago he was doing so well. It's a shock to see him here, with a puffy face (and torso) and his hair looking lighter. Not surprisingly, his fight scenes are directed with quick cuts and simple martial arts movies that even an amateur could pull off. He seems very disinterested by what's happening, even a little out of it. He shouldn't be surprised that it's his career that's half past dead.

The director, Don Michael Paul, seems to have no ability to direct an action scene, martial art OR weapon-oriented. He uses annoying techniques like slow-motion or fast-motion to try and be "edgy", I guess. He also has problems telling a story, with some notable gaps that filled would have made some plot points more clear. He was working with a tight budget, which explains some things like numerous close-ups and somewhat impoverished sets. (Plus outdoor locations that clearly aren't in the United States, even though the movie is supposed to be taking place there.) Still, the movie moves along with nary a slow spot, and as problem-filled as it is, it's slicker and less annoying than Seagal movies like TICKER and THE FOREIGNER.

Half Past Dead Oh Yes! It's actually called Half Past Dead! By the time i'd finished laughing at the title of this ridiculous Seagal movie it was nearly finished. Dutifully i rewound and started again. I should warn you, should you watch the film after seeing the box, the name "steven seagal" or the hilarious title, it is spectacular. If you don't laugh out loud at the maliciously bad acting on display, the plot's definitely gonna make you laugh. The stunt work is fine as usual, but the action scenes despite their groovy slow-mo, are completely flat and boring. why would you ever care about characters so detestable as these? seagal can't act, but now he's old he can't even fight. But to surround him with a bunch of c-list rappers and card board cut outs is unforgivably bad.

I downloaded this movie without paying a single penny and I still want my money back after watching this waste of time.

I double dare anyone to write a spoiler

on this so called movie. No matter how bored you are, no matter how desperately you are in need of entertainment you still don't want to see this stupid and pointless bad movie.

I would rather be bored than watching this stupid crap!

This movie was so bad! I think it gave me cancer.

No really.

Bye.

Steven Segal unfortunately has been facing a creative crisis for many years, which goes hand in hand with his excess weight and the diminishing budget available to make movies. In this case we have Segal who, in search of a reckoning, must face a very special situation in a prison where things tend to go wrong. We cannot explain the reason for the lack of prevention measures in that prison or the fact that things happen against all logic; what we can recognize is that the film, despite its holes, moves fast thanks to exaggerated performances and an essence of pushing things to the limit against all logic. Entertains.

Every negative comment made by every other person on this website has been true.

The film has a plot that is mildly interesting, but executed with complete amateur ability. The fight scenes are poorly choreographed. The gun fights are boring. None of the rappers - especially Ja Rule - can act. The Seagal character twist was predictable. 49er Six was such an obvious rip-off of The Matrix's Trinity. I mean, jeez, why else would she be dressed like that? On top of the bad acting, the music is awful. It blends in poorly, is repetitive, and makes no sense. Why put rap music in a PG-13 movie? Every 5 seconds the lyrics are blanked out, and it's very obvious whether you've heard the songs before or not. And I like the Crystal Method, but they did the same thing - picked a song with the MF word that is poorly edited. I would wager MF was blanked out 60 times during this movie. Completely stupid.

Last, the writer knows absolutely jack squat about prisons and especially executions. To believe the security in this prison is that bad is pretty weak and insults the viewers. And now that everyone has seen The Green Mile, even those who have never seen a real electric chair know you don't just sit them down and turn it on.

Still trying to figure out why Ja Rule didn't kill Seagal. His friendship was bogus. But this doesn't matter, the film still sucks and is not recommended for anything other than kindling.

I just returned from seeing half past dead and walked out getting exactly what I expected. I would compare it to glimmer man and fire down below in the sense that it was entertaining but lacked what the earlier seagal movies gave to us. I hope that in the next two that seagal has in the works, that he goes back to what he does best which is punishing everyone without all the special effects and quick edits.

I saw Half Past Dead back in 2003 and I forgot about it.I've been getting into Seagal again recently and I watched this film a few weeks ago.Most of Seagal's films were Rated R.This is his only PG-13-rated film to date(though "Fire Down Below" was a very tame R, could have easily been PG-13).I was surprised at the low score.Sure this film is no "Above The Law", "Under Siege" or any of Seagal's earlier works, but it is a fairly entertaining action film.It was better than "Fire Down Below", "On Deadly Ground" and the majority of his straight to video fare.The film is about an FBI agent who goes undercover in a new Alcatraz-like prison.A man who buried a large amount of money years ago is to be executed.However some terrorists break into the prison and force the man to tell them where the money is.Part of the film involves the terrorists(led by Morris Chestnut who previously was in Under Siege 2 and plays a fairly good role) playing mind games with the police officers and the hostages, one of whom is a supreme court judge.The other part involves Seagal, Ja Rule and the other prisoners trying to save everybody.Half Past Dead is a fairly underrated and decent enough Seagal film.Too bad that after this, he was reduced to crappy straight to video fare.

Half Past Dead is un-pretentious, un-boring, un-real, and fun to watch. Leave your expectations for great story telling, and insightfulness at the door, and just enjoy a fairly entertaining film.

What it's got: Good actors and casting, action, noise, snappy lines, simple morality, and escapism to an unusual setting. Lots of never-empty machine guns, 'hip' dialogue, lightly painted characters.

What it doesn't have: gratuitous sex, lots of swearing, grounded-in-reality believeability, earth shattering artsy-fartsy direction.

Seagal is understated, and plenty cool as the hero, and it was nice to have three competent females in Claudia Christian, Nia Peeples, and Linda Thorson. The 'jailhouse gang' was well selected, and played. Every character in the film added just enough spice and variation that it was not just a Seagal vehicle.

This is a no-brainer, shootemup, with unambiguous good guys and bad guys, well worth the price of admission. Don't miss this film if you watch movies for the fun of it.

Request to Hollywood: Put Claudia Christian and Nia Peeples together in a film as headliners. The characters in this film would be a good starting point, and you could even toss in Linda Thorson's character for good measure. Definite possibilities! ~~~~~~~~~~~

I saw this movie yesterday, and like most allrdy wrote "i also expected a Steven movie", god i love this guy just because his fighting style is unique and very humerous. In had a little doubts cause i read that "Ja Rule" was playing in it, but i thought hopefully they give him a smal role, so i don't get irritations by watching him. And offcourse the opposite happend, goooooooooooooooooooood steven what the heck were you thinking going to join a sry *** crew like this. Steven was broke and needed cash? bah =( what a big dissapointment. If you like Steven movie, pleaseee skip this one its pure drama, you only get a few special effects that made me vote 3/10. But the "acting?" of ja rule screws up the whole movie aswel for his buddy kurupt with his irritating hood talk.

My beer went from tasting fresh to water we do the dishes in. The story didn't had any "good" about it. To me it felt like a 3 year old produced it.

Hopefully Steven makes me happy again in a future movie. People this isn't even worth renting simpel as that.

To bad and pitty :-)