Very well executed

Lack of good storyline.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

As a long-time Bruce fan (I first saw Evil Dead in the early 90's, not realizing the man already had a cult fan base), I enjoyed every scene Bruce was in, and since he was in virtually every scene in the film, obviously I enjoyed most of the film. The doctor guy was annoying, the love interest was whiny but an OK foil, the teen girl was hot but evidently found the scenery too tempting to resist gobbling up in big bites. The villains were competently played but telegraphed oily evil immediately, losing all sense of suspense there.It was predictable and a bit preachy, and the mention of the SOA was bordering on heavy-handed, but Bruce charms and smirks his way through it and makes an otherwise forgettable bit of tripe an actual pleasure to watch. It is significant, however, that no one but him could have.Of course, one doesn't watch Bruce Campbell for the outstanding special effects (Alien Apocalypse, anyone?), the great supporting cast (The Man with the Screaming Brain?), or the realistic, down-to-earth plots (any Evil Dead you care to name), one watches for Bruce. By that standard, this movie does fine.

TV movies are awful. They tend to be a 40 minute show stretched out to 90 minutes. This is not the case with BN:TFOSA. Bruce Campbell does his usual awesome job of entertaining the audience that you forget you are watching TV. I especially appreciated the nods to Evil Dead, and his book, thank you Bruce for being a fans actor. Many "A-listers" could learn a lesson or two about respecting the fans from you (yes I am looking at you George Lucas). Jeffrey Donovan does a admirable showing as a director. He used some good moves behind the lens without getting crazy. Many times directors will so desperately want to "show their style" they get funky beyond reason, not the case here. He kept the action steady and allowed us to enjoy it. Thank you. The writing was better than average as well. I can't review the script ( I didn't read that, and who knows how close the shoot came to it) but I can certainly see Mat Nix's hand on it. I would be surprised if they deviated much from his very excellent work as a writer. The only complaint I could make would be the realism factor was down. I know BN tends to lean toward the A-Team side of realism and The Fall stuck with that style.Since this movie was announced at Comicon last year I have been eagerly awaiting it. I was not disappointed, and if you like Burn Notice, neither will you.

The long anticipated prequel to the Burn Notice series answered many of our nagging questions about the series and Sam Axe in particular; but, posed even more. Matt Nix (the writer) and Bruce Campbell (the actor) played the Sam Axe character true to the form we would expect of a former Navy SEAL, if anything even more so. Affable, caring, not taking himself too seriously -- but with a high sense of loyalty and duty as well as street savvy. For the most part, a "squared away" SEAL - except that most of those guys that I'm acquainted with are quite a bit more serious, and anything but easy going.Unfortunately, not all the show's characters fared the same. Don't get me wrong, none were poor actors; just that, some were weaker than others. And, most were appropriate for the genre and situation; but, just as in the series, some were written unbelievably stupid, or uni-dimensional or repetitive. Matt does seem to have a bit of a penchant for writing controlling shrews as lead female characters.The director, Jeffery Donovan (Michael in the series), and writer are apparently much more acquainted with crooks, thugs and terrorists than they are with anything military. Guns, bombs and thugs are portrayed with amazing accuracy but anything military (especially Navy) seems to end at the mere term: "Navy SEAL." Supposedly Mr. Nix relies heavily on spy consultants but no one associated with the show appears to have even served in the military. No attempt seems to have been made to even approximate the correct insignias, uniforms, badges or military law (J.A.G) processes.None-the-less, the series isn't about the military, TV budgets aren't the same as movies, Jeffery is a beginning director, and Matt... well he's Matt, one of a kind. The character-driven story was so compelling that, if you didn't look too deeply, or become annoyed with the characterizations, it was two hours well spent. Followers of the series will not be disappointed and will be well served with the new explanations, the new questions to answer, the expansion on a well-liked character, AND a great filler to a terribly long season hiatus.

The concept is easy enough; a made for television spin-off prequel to a popular series with a cult following, on a dirt cheap, shoestring budget. Who said executing a concept is easy? The humor exhibited in Burn Notice: The Rise of Sam Axe spans the gauntlet from down-right imbecilic to border-line sophisticated.At the very beginning we see foreshadowing, in the form of his seemingly obsessive compulsive attention to the precision of his belt buckle's orientation, soon contrasted by a scene making one have no choice but to smell the possibility of the video game rights being sold to the makers of "Donkey Kong". Sam Axe, brilliantly portrayed by the affable Bruce Campbell, of "The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr." fame, is a living, breathing, oxymoron sans the "oxy", capable of leaving his calling card at the scene of the alleged crime while simultaneously reminding us how the likes of James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer often take themselves too seriously (perhaps those guys should be connoisseurs of Scotch, like Sam). I can't vouch for the authenticity of his uniform, or verify whether or not naval personnel are required to salute indoors, but I enjoy a good laugh when I see one.The cameo with Michael Weston (played by Jeffrey Donovan) is priceless. Jerry Seinfeld was not a better mentor to George Costanza, nor was Bud Abbott to Lou Costello. Accordingly, the tone of the movie is much more comedic than that of its progenitor. Fans of "Burn Notice" will especially appreciate the term of endearment Sam uses when referring to an un-named ex girlfriend of Michael's. The interplay of the source of the soundtrack with specific situations is reminiscent of a Mel Brook's movie.On the more sophisticated end of the comedy spectrum are the way subtitles don't always correspond to the spoken words, whether or not subtitles were even necessary in a given scene, and how Sam clumsily, yet fluently, spoke Spanish so inconsistently. I am reminded of numerous scenes in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds". Two examples are how Sam says "flaming sword" instead of "burning sword" for his interpretation of "ardiente espada", and when the subtitles display "thank you" when he says "gracious bandidos".Sam Axe should also receive the "Second Best Use of a Chainsaw in an Under-funded Film" Award. The name of the first best user of a chainsaw in one of those situations escapes me, making me feel like a tree. Chainsaws don't help trees, people help trees. To cap it all off, the song played at the end is about Snow White, in celebration of a Cinderella victory. Nice.