America's first female president is shot during Memorial Day when she announces that she will bring back the troops from the Middle East. The shooter is about to leave the scene of the crime. Val is sitting in a car and communicates with someone that the shooter is about to leave. As soon as the killer exits an elevator two security guards shoot at him, but he kills them. Then Val confronts the killer himself but he manages to escape.Then a military higher up, General Carrington, meets some little black girl and they talk about some failed mission, bodies, and someone who escaped.Now we meet a hunter who discovers a guy hanging from a parachute and bleeding. He takes him to his home where his wife takes care of him. The guy has a tattoo on his upper chest "XIII". He has some flashbacks but also amnesia. He knows nothing previous to waking up at the hunter's home. But they also discover he's got great military/self-defense skills and has some muscle memory of accessing some sites with a memory card he had in his watch.The NSA run by the awesome Colonel Amos in the meantime is trying to find the killer and eventually make public the picture of XIII.But Val and some military unit show up and shoot up everyone at the hunter's place. XIII escapes but is eventually grabbed by the NSA. He's tortured, uh...interrogated, but since he's got amnesia he has nothing to say. He manages to escape. And always Val after him who grabs him at some point only to lose him again. Eventually the little black girl and Carrington contact XIII and tell him what is going on.XIII of course is on a mission to discover his past. He's got pictures of a woman. But Carrington lets him know that he has a task to complete. He's not really the killer but his job is to draw out a conspiracy deep within the government. XIII agrees to continue. And sure enough, since the election is coming up there are powerful interests trying to obtain a certain result. After the president was killed, several terrorist attacks have taken place on US soil and XIII discovers a major nuclear attack planned on election day. Terrorism is as usual used by hawks to try to direct foreign and domestic policy. And the surprises continue till the very end.XIII has a fantastic rich and complicated story involving political intrigue, conspiracies, red flag operations, terrorism, etc. It has some good action scenes as XIII is almost invincible. I wouldn't expect too much realism in the action scenes, or some of the political details but that's fine. It has a good cast in part: Dorff, Kilmer, Bryk (a revelation and star-making performance), McHattie, Bourgeois. But there are casting problems as well: Higgins is weak in a key role, Murino is gorgeous but her accent is rather thick. Davis is completely miscast. Editing could have been better to make the story a bit smoother. Things are unnecessarily unclear at first, with short nonsensical flashbacks. Direction too isn't as good as this story deserves. Still, in the absence of 24 or something like it, XIII is a thrilling movie/mini-series.

XIII: The Conspiracy appears to get off to a decent start, but as the film unrolls it quickly unravels. The action slows down, and boring, repetitive, nonsensical babbling quickly takes over. Unfortunately, nothing is said that makes any sense - just confusing hogwash about politicians, spies, an emerging election and amnesia. The amnesiac was the luckiest of the cast. At least he had a justification for not knowing what was going on. Instead of the discussions between the actors and actresses delineating the preceding action, and setting up the next round of fisticuffs, explosions, and torture, they do nothing but randomly bump the film in a different, unexplained direction. This serves only to give the actors, who randomly pop in and out, just some time to create a new situation or two that only adds to the confusion. Wherever this dog is barking, there must be a better movie playing at a theater within walking distance. Take the walk. Or if you're on your sofa, stretch for the controls and flip the TV dial randomly and you'll come up with a better choice. This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

The story line is very good. There are holes but for the sake of keeping the viewer intense, it is okay. The actors are quite believable. The action scenes are good. I really enjoyed this movie. If you like conspiracy stories - this one, is one of the best, and very well delivered. The character I liked most was of Greg Bryk playing Colonel Amos running the government intelligence. This character is just brilliant!Stephen Dorff could have been better. It seems as if he tries to imitate Jason Statham, being a bad ass. But all and all I liked him.To sum it up - I really hoped there would be another sequel.

***spoiler alert*** As a Belgian I'am a big fan of the original comic books of XIII. I own them all. There're 19 books who tell the complete story of XIII and now a second series has started more focusing on the other characters from the original series like how the Mongoose became the contract-killer as we know him.I saw an article somewhere that said this mini series would be the story of the events from the first two books in the series originally called 'The Day of The Black Sun' and 'Where the Indian goes'. I just saw the 2 episodes and I think there's maybe 20% left of the original XIII story. How disappointing !!! The events you see are from the first 5 books skipping book 3 and 4 'All the Tears of Hell' (XIII in prison) and 'SPADS' (XIII back in training) for some reason. There're also some parts of the 8th book in the series called 'XIII against I' to create an open ending. They changed so many things that are important in the complete mystery. Why ? After the 4 first books you get the 5th one called 'Red Alert'. That looks a little bit (with a lot of imagination) like the events in the second part of the movie, but there's never a chemical bomb involved for instance. Chemical bombs is the game of Jack Bauer in 24, not of XIII. Other strange changes are for instance the character of Sally Sheridan. She doesn't exist in the comics. It's Wally's brother William Sheridian that's been shot at the beginning. XIII doesn't come down with a parachute, he washes up on a shore and the events that follow do not happen in a snowy landscape. The General Carrington in the books is a big guy and a heavy cigar smoker. You almost never see him without his cigar. He looks a bit like actor Lee Marvin. Stephen McHattie doesn't look like the Carrington from the books at all. The General is not even NSA in the books, he's a general in the normal military but former commander of SPADS (Special Assault and Destroying Sections) a special unit that trained XIII. Colonel Amos is (probably) NSA, but in the books he's an old man (60 - 65 years old) not the young guy as played by Greg Bryk. The Mongoose is a creepy looking bald guy who doesn't die in the first 5 books this movie is based on. The incidents from XIII's past happened in South America not in Afghanistan. Parts of the clues that will lead to the true identity of XIII will be found in South America not in Afghanistan at all. Where are Felicity Kendall, Betty Barnowsky and the terrible Irina Svetlanova ? Three very important recurring characters in the books. All gone !!!This movie looks nice if you don't know the books. It's nice entertainment if you like an action movie like there're 12 in a dozen. If you know the books you would be very disappointed too I guess. This could have been done a lot better. They should have made a single episode of each book and should have stayed on the original storyline with a cast that looks at least a bit like the characters in the books. You don't give Batman a green cape or Superman a yellow suit and red hair do you ? They did the same in the past with Largo Winch (from the same author) and now they're doing it with XIII. They turn one of the best comic book series ever made into an ordinary 2 episode TV-movie. If they would ask me to write the screenplay I would make something great of it...at least better then the two episodes I just saw. It's always been my big dream to write the screenplay for a XIII TV-series and maybe it's time to start writing on it and then go and talk with author Jean Van Hamme. I really was looking forward to see this production, but I'am very disappointed now. I hope they once will make a better series of it that will cover the complete and true XIII mystery as written by the comic book author and not some kind of digest told in 3 hours. The story of XIII is way to complex to tell in just 3 hours.