I have just seen Today You Die. It is bad, almost very bad.

1) The direction and editing are awful, just awful. Almost made me turn off the movie, Fauntleroy (the director) has no idea what he is doing, he seems to be filming things at random and some scenes don't make sense at all. Also, I hate it when the same scene is used again in the same movie, in this movie some scenes were used 3 or 4 times. Pretty bad.

2) The dialogue is sometimes good, sometimes awful. I like the fact that they wanted to make Seagal's character and Treach's character seem like they were in a similar relationship to the characters in Lethal Weapon, but it did not work simply because some of the dialogue DID NOT MAKE SENSE, and I speak English very well, it's not that I did not understand the words, it was the fact that the jokes and dialogue lines had no meaning whatsoever.

3) The script is pretty bad. Why do they always try to complicate DTV action movies? Seagal's wife in the movie has psychic abilities, why? Is it useful to the movie? NO. Seagal eliminates a whole bunch of people who work for the guy who betrayed him and he knows these people without having ever met them in the movie. STUPID. The story sometimes goes off track and the jumps back without any reason. The story is messy and pointless sometimes. They should have kept it simple and it would have worked.

4) In some of the action scenes it is not Seagal, it is his stunt double. You can tell because they only film him from behind and never show his face. He also beats the guys with movie martial arts, not real ones like the aikido Steven knows. The stunt double uses cheesy kicks and punches.

5) Steven is good in the movie. 90-95% of the lines are said with his real voice. The rest is dubbing but it is not that bad. This was good. Also Steven seems to be enjoying himself in the movie and is more into the action that he was in Submerged. He likes Treach as a partner; at least he does not seem to dislike him. Also, he seems to have been in better shape than in some of his recent movies. I hate the fact that he wears clothes to hide his body, but in the same clothes that he wears on the DVD cover he looks more than OK and he should have wore those clothes for most of the movie not the stupid long leather coat.

I really think that Seagal was willing to make a good movie. The fact that he came late and took off early from the set ON TWO MOVIES directed by Fauntleroy does not look like a coincidence to me. I think he realized that the crew were amateurs or only in it for a quick buck and he did not give a damn anymore.

In the hands of a better company and crew this might have been a damn good action movie for Seagal. Something like Out for Justice or Above the Law. I honestly believe that. But the people who made the movie are not very good at their jobs or they did not have enough money to do the job properly. Too bad since I liked Steven in the movie and Treach was cool (Ice Cool ) too, but the rest was bad. Hey, at least this gives me hope for Black Dawn and Shadows of the past. I think that Mercenary might be just as badly handled. But hey, Steven seemed to be back into the same mood he was in while making his better movies and at least THAT is reason enough to watch the movie.

I liked it, but it could have been SO much better. 4/10

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive

negative