User Reviews

HARD TARGET was a Van Damme vehicle directed by the legendary John Woo.

This one is no related with the original but keep most of its structure; two bad guys a group of cruel hunters (the baddest of all very well played by Rhona Mitra) and a prey that does not like to be hunted. There are some variations on the beginning, the end, and the locations (here Myammar and Thailand jungle); but the core is humans hunting humans like in the Most Dangerous Game.

There are also a few moments with doves and a very recognizable gun; so I am assuming Roel Reiné is paying tribute to the original movie.

The problem is he is not Woo and you can easily notice. Some scenes are not well choreographed and the script could have benefited from better dialog, less clichés.

Production values are low but effective and the acting is mostly good; specially Robert Knepper

Scott Adkins is not as charismatic as Van Damme but his fighting skills are very good and keep the movie interesting.

The end could have been far better; but it was basically what you expected.

In brief; a good way to spend a couple of hours, if you prefer real live actions than digital unrealistic.

Scott Atkins survives "Hard Target 2," but this straight-to-video sequel isn't as challenging as the John Woo original. Having said that, I would also say that Atkins is a better actor that most give him credit, and straight-to-video helmer Roel Reiné is probably the best in the business at directing fare such as "Dead in Tombstone," "Death Race 2," and "Marine 2." "Hard Target 2" squanders gorgeous actress Rhona Mitra, who is a vision in black leather wielding an assortment of weapons, but she does have a terrific death scene. Reiné and "Act of Defiance" scenarists Matt Harvey & Dominic Morgan with "Swimming with Sharks" scribe George Haung keep our embattled hero roughing it from start to finish. Wes Baylor (Scott Atkins) kills his best friend, a competing MMA fighter named Landon (Jamie Timony), when he delivers a spinning head kick that allows him to triumph over him. Only after he has celebrated his success does Wes realize that he has killed him. Afterward, Wes can only find fights in Asia where he runs into slimy Aldrich (Robert Knepper of "Transporter 3") who has a deal for him. The haul that Wes is promised will set him up for life, but Wes gets the surprise of his life. He has to elude several hunters armed with weapons of every description through the jungles of Mynmar. Aldritch gives him a water bottle and a bag of rubies as payment and sends him packing. Near the end of this R-rated actioneer, Atkins gets his hands on an assault rifle and takes out dozens of bad guys. Along the way, the hunters fall prey either to Wes or natives who have been used in the hunt. Knepper makes a good, solid villain who doesn't have a qualm against killing innocent bystanders. The jungle scenery and the high stakes pursuit is strictly average. Reiné does double-duty as lenser, too, so these outlandish shenanigans are beautifully shot. The script has no surprises and there are no reversals worth mentioning. Altogether, Scott Atkins deserves better movies.

The film opens with a man being hunted with crossbows in a warehouse and then goes six months earlier to Las Vegas where Wes "The Jailer" Baylor (Scott Adkins) kills his friend Johnny "Solid Gold" Sutherland (Troy Honeysett) in a kickboxing match. Wes feels bad, so like most depressed kick-boxers in films he moves to Bangkok and makes chum change fighting unsanctioned street fights living in pigeon filth.

Enter Aldrich (Robert Knepper) a man who promotes high purse unsanctioned fights. Baylor agrees to the fight in corrupt Myanmar, but is tricked into being the hunted as hunters from around the world peruse Baylor through the jungle whose talents as a kick-boxer are not as meaningful as all that special ops stuff he now does. You can guess how it ends. I was confused by the opening hunt, expecting it to circle around to it with the six month information, but it does not. That was a separate hunt altogether, but is a tie-in. Arrows fly in slow motion, but didn't seem to add anything.

Standard protagonist hero being hunted film. Doesn't require thinking. Decent for what it was.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

Here's a better late then never review of "Hard Target 2" (R - 2016 - US)...Was it an homage to John Woo, or were they making fun of him?

Genre: Action/Martial Arts

My Score: 5.2

Cast=6 Acting=4 Plot=5 Ending=7 Story=3 Action=6 Pace=5 F/X=6 Fight=8 Sequel=2

A down on his luck mixed martial artist can't refuse a million-dollar purse he's offered for one final bout. When he arrives for the fight, he learns he's been tricked into becoming the target of a human hunt.

They say it's an homage to John Woo and the first film. It just seemed like they were making fun of him instead. The scenes with the doves were laughable, but the fight scenes and the ending were pretty cool. As a straight to DVD martial arts film it's not bad...but as a sequel to "Hart Target" it can't even hold a candle to it. Scott Adkins is a great action star and I love Rhona Mitra, but the movie could have been better.

It seems that the straight to DVD market are beginning to run out of ideas again, as they've decided to hark back to making sequels to moderately successful films that have now become something of a cult for some.

About ten years ago, we had Hollow Man 2, 8mm 2, Single White Female 2, and a slew of American Pie films.

Just Lately we've had Jingle All The Way 2, Kindergarten Cop 2, and now this. I had relatively high expectations because Scott Adkins is quite he prolific straight to DVD action star. In fact, he's this generations Michael Dudikoff..

Retired mixed martial artist Wes "The Jailer" Baylor can't refuse a million-dollar purse he's offered for one final bout in Myanmar.

But when he arrives for the fight, he learns he's been tricked into becoming the star of a very poor sequel.

Carrying only water and a ruby-filled money belt for the last person standing, Wes must outsmart the heavily armed group that has paid to kill him.

As he fights for his life in the treacherous jungle terrain, the hunters become the hunted.

Me and my silly expectations. Even though I had hopes for this, deep down I knew it wouldn't be any good, because the original is wonderfully over the top, and is almost fairy tale like in the way the film is edited. Here, we just have a whole load of slow motion, and if you thought 300 was in excess of using that style of filming, it's beyond ridiculous here.

In sure if the slow motion was taken out, the film wouldn't last twenty minutes.

So the film begins like an ending to any other Adkins movie, with a fight. But wait a minute, he ends up doing so terrible in the ring, he turns his back on society and turns to the bottle and stars in his own mini remake of A.W.O.L. For about ten minutes (a remake within a remake, how meta).

So then we get Jango Fett and cut price Henriksen who dupe him into becoming the hunted. And that's it.

Once we are in the jungle, we have a little bit of First Blood: Part 2 thrown in, some admittedly good fight scenes, and some admittedly really bad CG blood, and before you can say 'is there any decent female characters in this film?', Rhona Mitra walks in, and does absolutely nothing apart from pout and walk away from explosions.....in slow motion.

It's a lifeless ordeal, nothing more than a blatant cash in on a wonderfully over the top action film.

And the biggest crime the film does?

Have bloomin' doves in it for no good reason.

Steer clear, it's very poor.

Wes Baylor (Adkins) is on a career trajectory that could be the case for anyone: He was a Las Vegas-based MMA fighter, he accidentally kills his buddy in the ring during a fight, he feels bad, he starts drinking and hits the skids, he begins Punchfighting in Bangkok, and an unscrupulous baddie tricks him into hunting him for sport. Could happen to anybody. Of course, said baddie, Jonah Aldrich (Knepper) has a hunting party with him in the Burmese jungle that also enjoy hunting the greatest prey of all...MINK! Oh wait, no. MAN! These hunting compatriots include a gaggle of stereotypes such as the Weak Link, the Millennial Video Game Designer, the Tough Chick, A Spanish Bullfighter, an Australian Outback (?)-style hunter, and the dad trying to toughen up said Weak Link.

Aldrich has his second-in-command, Madden (Morrison) as the tough guy of the group. Aldrich is paying off the Burmese authorities with suitcases full of cash, but there's also a cache of rubies at stake. When the initially down-and-out Baylor (whose MMA nickname was "The Jailor", which is actually spelled correctly) finds an innocent country girl named Tha (Truong) in the jungle, he finally finds he has something to fight for, and he unleashes his power on the Aldrich group. Will Baylor be a HARD TARGET 2 Aldrich?

While Hard Target 2 is not a bad movie, it doesn't live up to the potential that a Hard Target sequel starring the great Scott Adkins promises. It's certainly better than previous Adkins vehicles such as El Gringo (2012), but even seeing this movie for the first time feels like watching a repeat. If we may compare it to a superior Adkins film, Green Street 3 (2013), that one was like admiring a brilliant piano player, while Hard Target 2 is like watching a player piano. It hits all the right notes on cue, but that's about it.

It has absolutely beautiful Thai locations, and thankfully the production values are high, but exactly how many Most Dangerous Game/Surviving the Game movies need to be made at this point? Should we be happy that the DTV industry is still making these or not? It depends on your tolerance for a lack of a creative or original plot, or if you just really like the whole "hunting humans in the jungle" thing. There have to be fans out there of it...but how many to justify yet another one?



It all starts right away with a nice bang (complete with some funny yelling), and the whole outing has plenty of action. That being said, the 104-minute running time could have been chopped down a bit. The always-enjoyable Adkins has some great fighting moves on display, but we missed his natural British accent. How come the Burmese country girl had one but he wasn't allowed to have one? (We think we may have detected a few instances where it slipped through, however).

There are several references to the earlier Hard Target film, from the use of slow motion, to the casting of Robert Knepper as the baddie, probably because he physically resembles Lance Henriksen. Not that Knepper isn't great in his own right, but the resemblance does give this sequel a sort of continuity to the earlier film.





Director Reine's filmography is pretty rife with sequels to other people's movies (or his own), but he's notable (?) for directing the Connecticut-shot Seagal vehicle Pistol Whipped (2008) - also starring Lance Henriksen. Fun facts aside, Hard Target 2 is another in a long line of movies of this sort that include everything from Death Ring (1992) to Soldiers of Fortune (2012), and countless other examples.

The action is there, Adkins is there, the production values are there - just a tad bit of originality would have gone a long way, because it's not there. Linking this with the earlier Hard Target in viewers' minds may have been shrewd, but another title might have been a better move. But that's unlikely to have happened, because the sign on the door here is apparently, "no originality, no problem".

Still, we should be happy this came out in the U.S. It seems like something this would be exclusively made for foreign markets. If you're willing to forgive the almost impressive lack of originality here and just concentrate on the Adkins action, Hard Target 2 is certainly worth seeing.