Marked for Death

 

 

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I don't know what happened and when. This movie opened in February at the theaters way back when, a month that critics now claim over the last few years (and maybe quite correctly) is a dumping ground for studios with "crap" they don't know what to with or how to market to attempt getting their money back. Actually, as far as I can remember, Seagal's first 3 movies (Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death) opened in February. . .and they all made money. A LOT of money for what the amount that was thrown in to them.
But here's the thing, as movies from the late 80's/early 90's go, this is NOT a bad movie at all. Yes, Seagal had his head-bobbing a la Clooney going full force in this one to make his words seem that much more effective and meaningful, but this was not considered a low budget movie back then. This would now be considered an excellent direct-to-video release with very high production value. What happened?
As with any old movie, you have to watch it with the asterisk inside your head that it is an older movie. That goes for something like Casablanca all the way up to The Avengers. Trust me. 15 years from now we will cringe at the dialogue in that one and firmly state that the action still holds up, but boy, are those special effects out-dated! This is probably Segal at the top of his game, which might be well not enough for most people, but it's got action in key parts, succeeds at also being somewhat of a thriller, and even tries to throw drama and a little bit of social commentary in to boot. That's a lot to squish in to 93 minutes, and considering Under Siege didn't have all that thrown in to 100 minutes, it could be argued that this is a better "overall" movie with Seagal whereas Under Siege is a far superior action flick.
It's not worth reviewing, everyone else seems to do that. However, the transfer on to blu ray is quite astounding if you consider the fact that this would be considered a "throw-away" title for Fox. Seagal only ever did this one movie with them, and all of his other's that were cinema-bound were produced by Warner Bros. They even gave the soundtrack an upgrade from regular Dolby 5.1, AND the picture is now anamorphic widescreen. But don't get me started on the whole "widescreen" for 4:3 TV's that Disney and Fox seemed to love to bring out at the dawn of DVD.
The picture isn't dark, like some other older titles being "upgraded" to HD, so all in all this is well worth the money if you a Seagal fan at heart. No extras, but they're never were really for any of his movies. It's almost like the studios don't ever want to admit they made all of these movies with him, they just want the money that Seagal always brings in for them. Which is always a slow, steady stream. . .whether you want to admit or not. Seagal will always have a foothold on cult-action cinema for the decades to come.

I've always been a fan of this movie, not a great movie, like most Segal films, but as far as his earlier works are concerned this is probably flush with Under Seige. The blu-ray is a 25GB single-layer format, the transfer still has some of the grain and noise but it's definitely improved. There aren't any special features. But this isn't a typical $9.99 blu-ray that has NO special features and just starts the movie right away. That clearly was just stamped from the DVD onto the blu-ray with little or no work done to enhance the quality. This Blu-Ray is probably worth a $14.99 price tag. Not as good as the sapphire series by any means, but they definitely cleaned it up a bit.

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