1988’s seminal Die Hard inspired a slew of imitators. With 1992’s Under Siege, we get “Die Hard On a Decommissioned Military Vessel”.

When the battleship USS Missouri gets put out to pasture, the crew decides to send off the old craft with a birthday party for Commanding Officer Captain JT Adams (Patrick O’Neal). Missouri Executive Officer Commander Peter Krill (Gary Busey) plans this shindig but he does so with an ulterior motive.

Krill brings in mercenaries led by disillusioned CIA Agent William Stannix (Tommy Lee Jones) and they take over the ship so they can hijack its nuclear weapons. With the Missouri crew almost entirely taken hostage, only ship’s cook and former Navy SEAL CPO Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal) can stop this dastardly plan.

“Die Hard On a Military Vessel” seems like a weird concept since one would assume said craft would enjoy a full complement of armed combatants. Given the decommissioned nature of the movie’s Missouri, I initially assumed this meant only a skeleton crew remained involved.

Instead, the boat comes with a full complement of seamen. That adds a theoretical shift to the basic Die Hard scenario.

Of course, Siege finds a way to neuter all those folks and leave the story basically as Ryback vs. the baddies. That becomes your Die Hard angle and it offers some of the charge that comes with the David vs. Goliath concept.

The biggest potential liability here relates to its lead. A martial artist who made the leap to Hollywood, it can seem tough to figure out why anyone thought Seagal possessed the acting chops or charisma to become a movie star.

Actually, this felt tough to fathom during Seagal’s 1990s heyday, too, as he always seemed like an unpleasant person. Siege tries to loosen him up and make Ryback amusingly rebellious, but Seagal can’t really pull off much more than angry facial expressions.

That seems a little unfair, honestly, as Seagal manages to deliver his potential laugh lines with some competence. Still, he lacks the natural charm of a Bruce Willis.

Despite his martial arts background, Seagal also never seems all that convincing as an action hero. Again, he doesn’t quite let down the material but I can’t help but think Siege would work better with a superior lead actor.

Perhaps to compensate, Siege comes with a strong supporting cast. In particular, the combination of Jones and Busey gives the movie real zing.

A year after Siege, Jones and director Andrew Davis would partner again for 1993’s massive hit The Fugitive. That one became a career peak for both and earned Jones a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Jones fares just as well in Siege, honestly, and he relishes the chance to play the bad guy. He makes Stannix delightfully slippery and riffs off Busey in a positive manner.

While Davis can’t completely overcome the clunky script from JF Lawton or the iffy performance from Seagal, he manages to bring some life to the proceedings. Although Siege never approaches the taut pacing of Fugitive, Davis nonetheless ensures that it cranks along at a brisk enough rate to keep the audience with it.

Ultimately I can’t offer high praise for Under Siege due to the limitations of its lead. Still, it becomes one of the better Die Hard copycats and offers a generally engaging action flick.

Under Siege appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. This became an appealing Dolby Vision presentation.

Overall delineation looked fine. A few interiors could show a smidgen of softness, but these instances remained minor at worst.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering manifested, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws remained absent and grain seemed appropriate.

The film’s palette leaned toward a mix of blues and ambers, with a red lean at times. This meant a limited range of hues but the disc replicated them in a solid manner, and HDR gave the tones added punch.

Blacks felt dark and deep, while low-light shots enjoyed good clarity. Whites and contrat got a nice noost from HDR. This became a solid reproduction of the source.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the Dolby Atmos remix brought a soundfield that suited a big violent action movie. This meant a lot of material from all around the spectrum.

Of course, scenes with aircraft or weapons fared best, as they created a solid sense of involvement. Quieter scenes added an appealing vibe as well, so this turned into a pretty engaging soundscape.

Audio quality mostly worked fine, with speech that appeared natural and concise. Music showed solid range and dimensionality.

A few elements displayed a bit of distortion, but effects usually came across as accurate and full. Overall, the track satisfied.

How did this 4K UHD compare to the Arrow Blu-ray? Both came with identical audio.

The Dolby Vision 4K UHD brought better delineation, colors and blacks, and it also showed more natural grain. The two looked very good but the 4K UHD seemed like the better representation of the film.

We get an array of extras here, and we start with an audio commentary from director Andrew Davis and screenwriter JF Lawton. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story and characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, stunts and action.

If you expect lots of good stories and insights from Davis and Lawton, I bear bad news, as both come in short supply. While we find occasional nuggets of value, this remains a largely slow and dull commentary that doesn't give us much real substance.

A few featurettes follow, and I'm On a Boat (With a Bomb) goes for 19 minutes, eight seconds. We get more info from Davis here.

The director talks about what brought him to Under Siege as well as sets and locations, casting and working with Steven Seagal, stunts and action, and a few related notes. Though not packed with fascinating notes, "Boat" still fares better than the tepid commentary.

One of the Guys spans 13 minutes, 52 seconds. Here we receive thoughts from actor Erika Eleniak.

She discusses her career along with her experiences on Under Siege. Eleniak proves frank and engaging.

Next we go to A Tight Ship. This one lasts 18 minutes, 35 seconds and features actor Damian Chapa.

Like Eleniak, Chapa chats about his time as an actor as well as what he remembers about the Under Siege production. Chapa brings us a decent array of thoughts but his chat lacks the quality we got from Eleniak.

Along with the film's trailer, we conclude with The Introvision Files. During this 27-minute, 51-second interview, we locate remarks from visual effects supervisor William Mesa.

He tells us about his use of the "Introvision" compositing process during Under Siege. Mesa covers this territory well.

Note that another featurette with Mesa under the same "Introvision Files" title appears on Arrow's Outland. I thought this one might be identical but happily it brings us fresh info from Mesa.

If you don't know the basics of Introvision, though, you'd need to watch the extras on Outland. That set gets into the process in more detail and it feels like this one assumes you already know those details.

With Under Siege, we get arguably the best film of Steven Seagal’s career. Granted, that exists as the definition of ‘faint praise’, but the movie nonetheless becomes a pretty solid Die Hard wannabe despite the weaknesses of its lead actor. The 4K UHD comes with positive picture and audio as well as a mostly appealing roster of supplements. Nothing here turns Under Siege into a classic but it still delivers enough excitement to make it worth a look.