smokin' aces 2: assassin's ball

the ol' bait and switch- it worked on me again! i really love the original smokin' aces movie, its bloody, complicated, and crazy. the all star cast keeps you guessing who will live and who will die- i mean, they kill off ben affleck in the first half hour! the pace of the original is breakneck to put it mildly. this one? well, its pretty boring, really. the only real tie this movie has with the first one is that it features some different members of the crazy assassin family featured in the first one. but none of those characters from the first one even make an appearance in this one at all! the story follows a former secret service guy as he is hunted down by different assassins. the good guys try to keep him safe while everyone else is on his trail. this one really suffers from terrible production value- most hour long dramas on tv look 10 times better than this! they try to recreate the style of the first film, but fail miserably- instead of stylized, it just looks incompetent! i feel bad for vinnie jones getting caught up in this straight to video mess.