Sunday, June 13, 2021

Rare TV Flix: The Great Escape II- The Untold Story (Part 2)

 After the last Review, what has changed?

Recap time...

- A bunch of Prisoners are in a German POW Camp in WWII.
- In the Film, they are mostly-American.  In real life, not so much.
- 71 of them escape in a daring move.  They should make a Film about that!
- 50 of them are captured and killed in a violation of International Rules.
- A few key people- like Reeve and Denison- escape from Germany.  Others- like McShane- do not.

Let's begin...

After meeting with his Cousin Churchill (played by the guy who was the bad guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark!), Reeve is sent back after the War ends.

He meets up with Denison and a new Officer- Judd Hirsch, finally showing up in this thing!- to investigate who killed the POWs.
They run into some conflict as some Nazi Officers are dead, while others are protected by military brass.  Not that they like them- they just have intel they can use.

This is the next hour, so...enjoy.
There is some intrigue as some of the former Officers try to hide, while others try to manipulate some benefits out of their talking.
There's eventually some real action on the back-end as they find some remaining Soldiers protecting an Officer and ultimately Reeve directly fights the man behind the Kill Order.
The day is saved, the Nazis are dead and a very specific rule for the future is established.  The End.
A decent continuation, but I'm not sure how prolonged this needed to be.  The first part is the setup, the actual Escape and then the aftermath.  There's alot there, even if the big moment is from the original Film.  This one is all new and...isn't all that exciting.  There's lots of talking.  There's lots of meetings.  Winston Churchill shows up.  There's more meetings.  They eventually get to a more interesting place, but it takes awhile.  The actual Story is fine, but not that interesting by comparison.  It's not bad.  If you want to see Judd Hirsch played like he's an Action Star, however, this is your Film!  The idea that he's some intimidating Military Officer doesn't quite work here, as much as they try.  Reeve brings some real passion here, showing yet again how typecasting him as Superman was a real disservice.  If you want to see it for that, I'd recommend it.  As a whole, the Mini-Series is fine, but not able to quite live up to the name attached to it.  You might also be surprised to learn that there's more than one The Great Escape 2 (though it's actually Season 2 of a Show)...

Next time, a Scientist with good intentions 'plays God.'  Will this be the one time that it actually works out?  Stay tuned...

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