Such a frustrating disappointment

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The Fall of Sam Axe was quite disappointing. In its best episodes, Burn Notice is tightly written, entertaining, and has a chemistry between the actors. Little of that was present in this two-hour prequel. The story goes two years before the Burn Notice timeline, but what surprised me was how little it added to the overall narrative. The movie follows Sam Axe, a supporting character in the show who supplies many of the laughs. As played by b-movie icon Bruce Campbell, he's a laid-back Lothario who knows a thing or two about combat. Here, we see Sam before a military tribunal, explaining what went wrong in his final Navy SEALS mission. The mission into Colombia involves all the usual intrigue of corrupt military officials and freedom fighters that herd goats. As Sam defies orders to save the rebels, he's joined by two doctors, played by Kiele Sanches and RonReaco Lee. Both are chronic whiners throughout the movie and offer no real substance to the plot. In fact, the only passionate performance comes from Ilza Rosario, playing the young rebel Beatriz in a debut role. Bruce Campbell has always been one of the great pleasures to watching Burn Notice. Here, as usual, he plays on the cult films of his past, at one point hurling a chainsaw in a nod to the Evil Dead trilogy. His appeal on the show was his devilish charm, a guy who doesn't mind name-dropping his connections. Ultimately, though, he's a Miami retiree with a good heart, and by setting this film before that, much of this is lost. Seeing him as an overweight soldier just feels off, and I wanted the Sam Axe we're familiar with. The movie was directed by Jeffery Donovan, who plays the protagonist Michael Westen on the show proper. This makes his feature-film directing debut, and in the end the debut is weak. It feels too much like an episode stretched out over two hours, with no added urgency to justify the extra running time. The high mountains of Colombia (or an adequate fake) are cloudy and gray, a far cry from the colorful, populated streets of Miami. But even Donovan doesn't deserve all the blame: series creator Matt Nix wrote the screenplay and co-wrote the story. His pilot for the show won awards, deservedly so, for creating a fast-paced and fun atmosphere for his spies and rogue agents to play in. All of that is lacking here.The best scene comes early on with a cameo by Donovan. His character Westen was still the CIA's top agent at this point, and the camaraderie between the him and Axe was sorely missed as the film progressed. Burn Notice is most at home with its leads and pushing them into ever-tighter corners, so The Fall of Sam Axe lacks all the advantages while making poor use of the show's breakout character. Bruce Campbell is an eminent crowd-pleaser, but the movie here is certainly not.

Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe is a journey into the past of the series' most enigmatic character as only Bruce Campbell can play him.Set in 2005, the movie follows Sam's last mission as a Navy Seal before he wound up retired in Miami. A moment of indiscretion gets Sam sent into the South American jungles to deal with a terrorist group causing havoc. But, things aren't what they seem.So far, the biggest complaints about this movie are that some of the uniforms are inaccurate, which means they must be doing everything else right. As made for TV movies go, this was very good. Even thought it felt more like one of Bruce's B-movie romps than an actual extension of Burn Notice, that only helps bring home the fun of the movie. Bruce gets many a great line, and a few nods to both his past and his fans.The other characters ranged from well-acted to a kind of meh performance, and the overall direction by Jeffrey Donovan was well done. Fans of both Bruce and Burn Notice will enjoy this picture and come away feeling satisfied. Was this necessary? Maybe not. Was it worth it? Hell yes.

Our family was thrilled to see that we'd be getting more of Bruce Campbell as Sam Axe. He did a good job with the material. You definitely see his Burn Notice character's core integrity in this.The writing has some funny and some drama, but at times was a bit obvious and clunky. The only thing that really nagged me was the shrewish attitude of the lead female. Don't know if she was directed to play it that way or if it was the writing, but it was annoying.Some of the other posters commented on the CGI. I didn't really care about that. You still get the gist of the action regardless.Overall, it's worth a look to get the back story on a popular character. And get more Bruce Campbell in your life.

I really wanted to like this movie. I am a big Burn Notice fan, and like the Sam Axe character. But other than the basic uniform colors being white and khaki, little else showed anyone connected with the project had ever met anyone in the Navy. I got the bit that he was supposed to stand out in the jungle, which is why his superiors gave him blue urban cammies ( on a covert op, but with his name on his cammies ), and while usually Seals go in as a team, Sam went in alone. Sam was supposed to be a Navy Seal, but wore a Surface Warfare Officer device. His white hat did not have the scrambled eggs a full Commander would be wearing. The khaki uniforms of his interrogators had no rank insignia.The story wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good either. It would have been a passable two-part episode, but it left a lot of room for improvement.