In the world of the low-budget, high explosive action thriller the name Steven Seagal carries a lot of weight.

Unfortunately it's not just his moniker that carries a few extra pounds - the great man himself appears to waddle around like he's just been sprung from a WeightWatchers meeting.

Here he plays the unlikely character of Russian FBI man Sascha Petrosevich, who has been planted in the newly-restored Alcatraz nick.

He's in there with his career criminal buddy Nick (Ja Rule), who he took a bullet for when a shoot-out with the Feds went awry.

Hit in the chest, his heart stopped for 22 minutes, making him half-past dead. Geddit? No, didn't think you would.

Anyway, Sascha and Nick plus an assortment of jailbirds are the only people standing between evil Morris Chestnut and the whereabouts of $200m in gold bars.

Morris drops onto The Rock with a team of commandos to force death row inmate and born-again Christian Lester (Bruce Weitz) to reveal where the stash is.

So the scene is set for a psychological exploration of a paradox where the institutionalised criminal fights the system that incarcerated him.

Of course, you don't get that. You get Steven running around a dripping jail amid showers of sparks firing endless rounds of ammunition only to occasionally stop, take stock and emote.

Even if the presence of Chestnut and Tony Plana as the Hispanic prison boss lifts things, it's essentially the usual big bangs for your bucks.

Peeples pops up as a female killer, possibly ex-KGB but more likely hired by Maybelline if her eye shadow is anything to go by.

But it's Seagal's show and he pretty much does what pimply boys who live their superhero lives vicariously through the console of a Playstation expect him to.

Tim Evans