A cheapie and belated sequel to the Van Damme classic with action man Scott Adkins taking over the lead role. Be warned, this one's substantially lower budgeted than the John Woo film, so the action scenes aren't particularly impressive even though there's a lot of them. The best thing about this one is the change of setting, with the Thai jungle locations looking really nice. Robert Knepper copies Lance Henriksen a lot as the main bad guy, but Temuera Morrison and Rhona Mitra bring some presence and Adkins continues to wow in the fight stakes. The action is average, though, which brings it down a degree, and the overreliance on slow motion hurts it somewhat.

Yours truly is a Belgian, and was a teenager during the 1990s, so as a matter of course I went through a fanatic Jean-Claude Van Damme phase. "Hard Target" was definitely my favorite! The premise of hunting humans for sport is one of the oldest in action/thriller cinema history, and "Hard Target" is by no means a classic, but the combination of a long-haired Van Damme and excessive violence worked effectively; for sure. I never even realized there existed a sequel, even if it was a cheap and direct-to-video one. Luckily, I have a good buddy who specializes in lousy and obscure sequels, and he assured me that "Hard Target 2" was fun, straightforward, unpretentious, ... and worth a look.

My pal's judgement is reliable, as always. I enjoyed this film, although I'm likely to completely forget about it again in just a few days. I never heard about lead actor Scott Adkins, but he seems to be a regular in the field of meaningless action guff. Some of the people hunting down Scott in the Myanmar jungle are more known, like Rhona Mithra ("Doomsday") and Temuara Morrison ("Once Were Warriors"). The background story of Wes - the prey - Baylor is hilariously dumb. During an ultimate fighting battle, Wes killed his best friend and feels traumatized ever since. How could he not realize that his endless kicks and punches were going to cause irreparable damage? Please, don't go sobbing and mourning that you "accidentally" killed your buddy after you hit him repeatedly in the brains. Anyway, it's not the type of movie where you expect logic or intelligence, merely fast-paced actions, nasty killings and ingenious death traps. "Hard Target 2" does deliver in this particular department.

Could the film have been even more enjoyable? Well, yes, I think so! They should have lobbied to have JCVD appear in a small cameo. He's at a point in his career where he probably had accepted if the paycheck was worthwhile. How cool it would have been if Van Damme starred as an arrogant and eccentric hunter, for instance?

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.