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About the Steven Seagal film:

  • Best Known for the Fanservice: The scene where Erika Eleniak pops out of a giant cake while topless is one of the most-remembered scenes from the first film, with many fondly remembering as 'the scene that wore out VHS tapes.'
  • Complete Monster:
    • William Strannix is an ex-CIA operative who specializes in taking down or taking over ships and submarines. When his superior, CIA Director Tom Breaker, believes Strannix to be going rogue, Strannix responds by murdering the agent sent to kill him and, along with his crew, hijacks the USS Missouri battleship, killing several of its passengers. Strannix coldly kills a random hostage just for standing next to another who got killed for trying to fight back and warns of doing the same again unless there's more cooperation. Strannix has a satellite station blown up along with both a fighter jet doing a watch and a helicopter with a rescue team, the latter two of which could lead to the whole ship being destroyed in an airstrike by other fighter jets. He amusedly lets the crew's lives be threatened in order to try to trap and kill ex-Navy SEAL turned cook Casey Ryback and fires two nuclear Tomahawk missiles towards Honolulu to kill everyone there.
    • Commander Krill is the Missouri's Executive Officer who helps Strannix and his men infiltrate and take over the ship, just because the Captain believed he was too abusive towards the crew. Krill, having a bottomless hunger for power, personally murders the Captain himself, and before the hijacking, he drugs Playboy Playmate Jordan Tate, claiming that the pills he gave her are for motion sickness. From that point forward, Krill endorses and takes part in all of Strannix's plans and actions, including turning nuclear weapons on the ship over to allies on a North Korean submarine. He expresses gleeful sadism at Strannix's plan to bomb Honolulu with two Tomahawk missiles, and tries to lure Ryback into a trap where he can be killed. This involves Krill trying to drown the entire crew in the room they're being held in by having it flooded, and taunting Ryback about it over video while one of the hostages is shot and killed for good measure.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • Krill's acts of hostility towards Ryback, beginning with spitting in the chef's soup.
    • Krill drowning his crew is both despicable and petty given that his reasoning is "They never liked me anyway." But the moment is made hilarious when Daumer replies:
      I bet they fucking love you now, eh?
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Jordan is the first thing people think about when this film is brought up, but she's also a memorable character who gets a number of snappy lines, gets a lot of focus on her character early on, and even some decent character development as she takes a level in badass. Hell, she even saves Ryback at one point - this is unheard of in a Steven Seagal film.
    • Admiral Bates is one, thanks to being a Reasonable Authority Figure who averts the stupid chief cliché of '80s and '90s action movies by authorizing and supporting Ryback's effort to take back control of the USS Missouri. The filmmakers must have agreed, since he is one of four characters to return for the sequel, counting Ryback himself.
    • Ramirez, Ryback's assistant cook and one of his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, is another likeable supporting character thanks to a charismatic performance from a young Raymond Cruz.
  • Evil Is Cool: William Strannix and Commander Krill, primarily because of Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey hamming it up like beasts, but also for providing a competent challenge for Ryback. Leonard Maltin hilariously described them as "better villains than [the] film deserves."
  • Franchise Original Sin: This is one of the first films to portray Seagal's character as an unstoppable force who is never seriously inconvenienced and effortlessly destroys every opponent he faces, traits that would show up throughout his subsequent films and be mocked in his later DTV era as a sign of his oversized ego. The difference here is that the action scenes were well-made, Strannix and Krill are still effective opponents, and the film is enjoyable overall, so it was forgivable (and Seagal was physically formidable enough, and skilled at fight scenes for it to be generally believable). Later films weren't anywhere near as well-made, in regards to action scenes or most other elements, and Seagal had notoriously gained considerable weight and barely moved, often relying on obvious stunt doubles and quick editing, making it impossible to take him seriously as the unstoppable killing machine the films were trying to make him out to be. Ironically, this is wildly considered Seagal's best film to date.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Former Baywatch cast member Erika Eleniak plays a woman called Jordan Tate... the name of Traci Bingham's character on Baywatch.
    • Tommy Lee Jones plays an evil rogue CIA operative opposed to the CIA director. In Jason Bourne he plays the evil CIA director Robert Dewey hunting down rogue CIA operative Jason Bourne.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Strannix launching two nuclear missiles at Hawaii out of spite, during his Villainous Breakdown.
    • Krill turning on the fire sprinklers to drown his imprisoned former crew, to lure Ryback into a trap. And that's if you don't count him betraying the crew and murdering the captain as this.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
  • Special Effects Failure: It's pretty obvious Strannix's body when he is killed is a dummy.
  • Squick: Ryback crushing Strannix's eye with his thumb, complete with oozing sludge.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • Ryback draping the dead Captain's uniform over his body, after Ryback finds the captain killed in cold blood. Not helping is the fact that it was his birthday.
    • The final scene of the film is Ryback and the crew in full uniform paying full honors to the captain's flag-draped casket.
  • Values Resonance: Krill saying Ryback "hits like a faggot" in 1992 was a pretty standard affront to the latter's masculinity. Today it makes Krill into a full-blown Politically Incorrect Villain.

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