Half Past Dead: Critic Reviews

It's no use: At this point, the bloated action figure [Seagal] couldn't restore his street cred if he joined the Wu-Tang Clan.

After several scenes of this tacky nonsense, you'll be wistful for the testosterone-charged wizardry of Jerry Bruckheimer productions, especially because Half Past Dead is like The Rock on a Wal-Mart budget.

A sizeable amount of the budget for this lazy film must have been spent on ammunition.

Look upon his fleshy neck, his dodgy hair and his strangely puffy immobile face, ye pantywaist liberals, and tremble!

First-time director Don Michael Paul can't make the action move, though he wisely keeps the lighting dark and murky so we can barely see whether withering star Seagal really can keep up.

Here, common sense flies out the window, along with the hail of bullets, none of which ever seem to hit Sascha.

Wildly incompetent but brilliantly named Half Past Dead -- or for Seagal pessimists: Totally Past His Prime.

Corny, nonsensical buddy flick.

Doesn't deliver a great story, nor is the action as gripping as in past Seagal films.

It goes through the motions of an action thriller, but there is a deadness at its center, a feeling that no one connected with it loved what they were doing.

Hip-hop prison thriller of stupefying absurdity.

The title of this dismal action flick refers to the Seagal character's having suffered a near-death experience, though he's returned from the other side with a remarkable lack of insight.

By the genre's most basic standards, [Seagal] now displays a visible fatigue and lack of interest that proves deadlier than any of his hero's skills.

Has the cheesy, deadened feel of a straight-to-cable film.

The best thing about Half Past Dead is that its title provides an accurate description of how you will feel after watching it.

Divertingly ridiculous, headbangingly noisy.

A shoot-'em-up for cynical times. Its only asset is Seagal himself, and frankly, he's is getting a bit past it.

The first half of the movie ... is extraordinarily lame as the preposterous setup takes forever and actors go through the motions. But when the action finally kicks in, the film takes on a B-movie vitality that pulls the viewer in.

Absent one original moment and bathed in de rigueur steel blue punctuated by sporadic bursts of flaming orange, the movie is notable only for its creative approach to Seagal's bulky gracelessness.

I can't think of anything more cringe-inducing than Seagal saying, in a strained would-be ghetto accent, 'We aight.'

What is it about Steven Seagal and three-word movie titles?

Seagal at his most minimal, saying and doing less in this film than in practically any film he's been in. Maybe it's for the best.

Half Past Dead may be the year's funniest unintentional comedy for its inane plot, repetitive, unimaginative stunts and dreadful dialogue.

Sometimes, when you've just wasted a tenner and a perfectly good evening watching another dumb, gratuitously gun-filled, hackneyed, nonsensical action picture, don't you wish you were as thick, lazy and easily pleased as Hollywood wants you to be?