Interceptor Proves An Under Siege Reboot Can Work (Without Steven Seagal)
The surprise success of Interceptor proved a modern take on Under Siege can work — even without Steven Seagal. Die Hard was a breath of fresh air for action cinema in the late '80s, as the genre had largely been dominated by the muscle-bound antics of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Action movies had become largely concerned with big body counts and making their heroes borderline indestructible, but Die Hard laid out a new blueprint. Bruce Willis' John McClane was a very human character with a receding hairline, a failing marriage and he bled — often quite heavily — when injured. The movie's structure of stranding an everyman hero in the middle of a siege also became a subgenre of its own.
The '90s were filled with similiar kinds of high-concept movies, such as 1992's Passenger 57 (AKA Die Hard on a plane!), Cliffhanger (...on a mountain!) or Speed (… on a bus!). Like any dominant movie trend, audiences tired of this formula, and movies like The Matrix and Spider-Man ushered in a new wave. One of the most famous Die Hard riffs of this era were the Under Siege movies. The first entry arrived in 1992 and saw Steven Seagal's cook — who turns out to be an ex-Navy SEAL — having to fight back against a terrorist takeover of a battleship. The movie was both a critical and commercial success and cemented Seagal's stardom.
Related: Interceptor's Chris Hemsworth Cameo Spoiled A Perfect Netflix Crossover
The actor returned three years later for Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, where Seagal's Ryback has the misfortune of being on a passenger train when a new group of terrorists take it over. The sequel grossed much less than the original, and while talk of a possible third entry occasionally surfaced in the years that
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