The Art of War II: Betrayal (2008)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Great Film overall

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

A lot of fun.

Sad to see so many bad reviews. I give this film a seven out of ten.Sure the film has a cheesy intro, and sure if you ponder too long the plot lacks credibility on many frontiers... but thats what makes many of the twists and turns so unexpected.The acting is to be expected, and some of the sf action scenes are over the top... but then there are battles that are scarily realistic.The switching of the realism and the ridiculous gives the film a charm.I had this film in my possession for a long time and I discarded it purely based on IMDb ratings. I'm glad I watched it.Ignore the bad reviews and get entertained.This film has everything from poor to great.

While trying to find out who murdered his martial arts mentor, former spy Neil Shaw (Snipes) is on the run from Homeland Security who believe Shaw is implicated in a Senator's (McDonald) death.When you have the word "art" in the title of a movie, what follows within the movie should have some semblance to it. Not the case here. Just because you use a quote from the book, THE ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu doesn't mean that the goal of "art" is fulfilled. While not artful, the story is okay, but the mechanics of making this movie somehow got in the way. Many fight scenes were too dark and yes lasted too long. The nervous camera made some appearances and when will someone realize it just makes the audience dizzy and has really no dramatic impact at all. I guess we can blame the defunct TV show NYPD Blue for that. They did that so they could show a naked butt from time to time. Yes, yes, all in the name of "art" I am sure. And, get this: Homeland Security raids Shaw's computer friends who are helping him unravel the troublesome situation he is in and Homeland Security enters those offices with guns blazing and all are killed. Nice, eh? Maybe the story isn't all that okay.And, why would you leave Carlson (Hayward) a US Senator unprotected when you know others are close-by and out to kill her? Yes, she is seen leaving in a van from a hotel she was supposed to speak at; but another, with blonde wig, takes her place and the decoy van takes off. The bad guys figure it out and the Senator is left unprotected and is, of course, killed. Did I say the story is okay?Actually, for an Okay-Not Okay movie, the acting by the entire cast was good. It was the other stuff. Wesley Snipes' movies, by and large, are rather good. I would hate to see Mr. Snipes' future movies turn into another sad affair as we witnessed in a recent John Cusack movie, War, Inc. So what we will do is give Mr. Snipes a pass this time as he may have been distracted by his accountants. Doing an OKAY movie is not an option, Mr. Snipes and please do not use the word ART in the title unless you mean it.Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Some, not much

Perhaps you like or perhaps you hate the first Art Of War. However, considering limitations of this genre, what Christian Duguay presented from his creative side is truly fantastic.Superb dosage of action. Action mostly intelligent at that. Cinematic side of the first one is exceptional and truly atmospheric, while sound treatment was of the same caliber. Well collaborated efforts with fine results. It is very clear to anyone who has seen the first part; that story and the movie itself, never really anticipated further conclusion; nor it required any sequel for that matter.This could be any "of the shelf" action movie with Wesley and with title that would less embarrass both Wesley and the rest of the collaborating crew. I wont even path into this story. Just awful ! Technical and visual side of this movie is incredibly ambivalent. From time to time I had a feeling of watching a TV movie or high packed TV commercial. A few nice shoots, but what remains is almost vaccinated from cinematic experience. Wesley, I like you, always did. But please, learn the art of choosing the Sun Tzus among writers, directors and casting! And please, don't be cheap on production like this!

This was a cool flick to watch, it has nice action, good fights scenes, all that was missing was a car chase, not as good as the first one, but it was still entertaining, it was better the Wesley Snipes last movie the contractor. I really don't agree with the other comments, it really wasn't that bad some people over exaggerate on the time the feel that they wasted watching a movie at the same time if it was so bad why you sit through all of it?, the story was kinda all over the place but it did hold enough of your interest to carry on somewhat, the first Art of War was probably a better story than this, if this movie had a little more better production value this would have been near on screen quality.