1988’s seminal Die Hard inspired a slew of imitators. With 1992’s Under Siege, we get “Die Hard On a Decommissioned Military Vessel”.

When the battleship USS Missouri gets put out to pasture, the crew decides to send off the old craft with a birthday party for Commanding Officer Captain JT Adams (Patrick O’Neal). Missouri Executive Officer Commander Peter Krill (Gary Busey) plans this shindig but he does so with an ulterior motive.

Krill brings in mercenaries led by disillusioned CIA Agent William Stannix (Tommy Lee Jones) and they take over the ship so they can hijack its nuclear weapons. With the Missouri crew almost entirely taken hostage, only ship’s cook and former Navy SEAL CPO Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal) can stop this dastardly plan.

“Die Hard On a Military Vessel” seems like a weird concept since one would assume said craft would enjoy a full complement of armed combatants. Given the decommissioned nature of the movie’s Missouri, I initially assumed this meant only a skeleton crew remained involved.

Instead, the boat comes with a full complement of seamen. That adds a theoretical shift to the basic Die Hard scenario.

Of course, Siege finds a way to neuter all those folks and leave the story basically as Ryback vs. the baddies. That becomes your Die Hard angle and it offers some of the charge that comes with the David vs. Goliath concept.

The biggest potential liability here relates to its lead. A martial artist who made the leap to Hollywood, it can seem tough to figure out why anyone thought Seagal possessed the acting chops or charisma to become a movie star.

Actually, this felt tough to fathom during Seagal’s 1990s heyday, too, as he always seemed like an unpleasant person. Siege tries to loosen him up and make Ryback amusingly rebellious, but Seagal can’t really pull off much more than angry facial expressions.

That seems a little unfair, honestly, as Seagal manages to deliver his potential laugh lines with some competence. Still, he lacks the natural charm of a Bruce Willis.

Despite his martial arts background, Seagal also never seems all that convincing as an action hero. Again, he doesn’t quite let down the material but I can’t help but think Siege would work better with a superior lead actor.

Perhaps to compensate, Siege comes with a strong supporting cast. In particular, the combination of Jones and Busey gives the movie real zing.

A year after Siege, Jones and director Andrew Davis would partner again for 1993’s massive hit The Fugitive. That one became a career peak for both and earned Jones a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Jones fares just as well in Siege, honestly, and he relishes the chance to play the bad guy. He makes Stannix delightfully slippery and riffs off Busey in a positive manner.

While Davis can’t completely overcome the clunky script from JF Lawton or the iffy performance from Seagal, he manages to bring some life to the proceedings. Although Siege never approaches the taut pacing of Fugitive, Davis nonetheless ensures that it cranks along at a brisk enough rate to keep the audience with it.

Ultimately I can’t offer high praise for Under Siege due to the limitations of its lead. Still, it becomes one of the better Die Hard copycats and offers a generally engaging action flick.

Under Siege appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. A disc from early in the format’s existence, the Blu-ray showed its age but nonetheless held up acceptably well.

Some edge haloes impacted sharpness to a degree, but not as much as I might fear. While these could impact overall delineation, the film generally displayed positive delineation.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering materialized, and grain seemed light but reasonably natural. Outside of a couple specks, the movie lacked print flaws.

The film’s palette leaned toward a mix of blues and ambers, with a red lean in the latter at times. This meant a limited range of hues but the disc replicated them in a generally solid manner.

Blacks felt dark and deep, while low-light shots enjoyed good clarity. Though the film could use a remaster, this still turned into a better image than I expected.

When I looked at the flick’s Dolby Digital 5.1, it lost points due to the absence of a lossless option. Lossy tracks on Blu-rays mean I lower ratings.

Despite this disappointment, the soundfield suited a big violent action movie. This meant a lot of material from all around the spectrum.

Of course, scenes with aircraft or weapons fared best, as they created a solid sense of involvement. Quieter scenes added an appealing vibe as well, so this turned into a pretty engaging soundscape.

Despite the lossy nature of the track, audio quality mostly worked fine, with speech that appeared natural and concise. Music showed solid range and dimensionality.

A few elements displayed a bit of distortion, but effects usually came across as accurate and full. Even without lossless audio, the track satisfied.

The disc includes the film’s trailer and no other extras.

With Under Siege, we get arguably the best film of Steven Seagal’s career. Granted, that exists as the definition of ‘faint praise’, but the movie nonetheless becomes a pretty solid Die Hard wannabe despite the weaknesses of its lead actor. The Blu-ray comes with dated but generally positive picture and audio but it lacks supplements. Nothing here turns Under Siege into a classic but it still delivers enough excitement to make it worth a look.

Note that this 2025 Blu-ray reissues the movie’s prior release in 2006. The 2025 BD simply reproduces the same disc from 19 years earlier.