Customer Reviews

Second Nature

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Good production values, a superb soundtrack and some good suspense shots can all still not make up for a doozy plot. If you don't mind not having to question its theme, the movie is interesting and will keep you guessing. But there are holes big as Gouda in the plot -- stuff like assassins leaving guns with fingerprints behind, people remembering things in a country they've never been in before, people being doctored...oh well, rent it and enjoy some neighborhood-garage type film making. The DVD tells me this was made for TV, so perhaps such a puerile level of oversight is forgiveable, but one wonders how much Baldwin's knees must have heart bending to these lows.

SECOND NATURE examines the intrinsic nature of the human psyche: can a cold blooded killer be reformed and change his killing ways? Alec Baldwin turns in a rather stiff performance as a man who wakes up from a coma after a plane crash that killed his wife and two daughters. He is in England, in the care of lovely psychiatrist Louise Lombard. As pieces of his memories come back, Baldwin starts to wonder just who he was and who he is, and what is his connection with shady Powers Boothe (a rather dull and wooden performance here too). By the time it reaches its revelations at the end, there are so many inconsistencies and implausibilities, SECOND NATURE just can't repair the damage done. A mediocre film at best.

I have seen a very similar story on Babylon V and I think its a non SF copy. The story itself is of a prisioner who is rehabilitated using a mind control method. However others have a different agenda and attempt to turn him into an assassin. It had enough twists and turns to make it interesting.

The acting was fair. Certainly Alec Baldwin can do much better.

Overall it was quite viewable. Probably worth a look.

This CD wont play in a non- multi international DVD player! No good if you are in Europe!

Let's see...what do we have here? A guy named Kane wakes up from a coma and a foggy memory. With the aid of a beautiful woman he tries to piece back the memories of his life, only to discover that he is...wait for it...and international political assassin. And he has amazing physical combat skills. Bouncing around Europe (Amsterdam, Venice, London) he is dogged by a covert organization of killers.

We have the mysterious puppet master over the phone...We have the assassination attempt (to knock off a potential dictator!) where our hero cannot pull the trigger at the last moment...as the target's family suddenly pops up...we have the target himself staring helplessly at the gun barrel...we have the hero clamboring around the the outside of an embassy...suspended precariously above a death defying drop...hand over hand until the toe of his shoe can just get a grip between the stones...we have flashes of memory interfering with our hero's expected next step...we have the covert organization picking up our hero on security cameras around town...we have the scene inside a private booth of a Swiss bank...where our hero opens up a briefcase and grabs important paraphernalia...we have our hero using his training to cleverly outwit his erstwhile captors at every step...we have secret codes embedded, hidden, in his body (although nothing so cool as a laser projector capsule under his skin, here we get a "Chilly Willy" tattoo)...we have small cars doing pro stunts in parking garages to elude the captors...we have an empathetic female "handler" who sees her "station" get "cleaned" by the "organization"...and we have a debate with the handler over what was really the "first mission" - the scene with the "organization's" alter superkiller who lies dying, poignantly, before our hero - the break in by our hero and heroine of the house in the country to use as a safehouse...and we have the "organization killer" wandering around the middle of a grassy field near the safehouse.

Alec Baldwin, I have seen Jason Bourne, and you are no Jason Bourne.