June-Claude Van Damme: The Order (2001)

The Order is another Van Damme film directed by Sheldon Lettich (who worked on about seven of them altogether, mainly as director but a couple of times with a writing credit only) and it's one of his weaker efforts. There are times when it skirts close to the fun adventurous tone that is clearly being aimed for but many more times when it just falls flat, even while viewers chuckle at Van Damme trying to evade aggressive captors while he's dressed up as a Hasidic Jew.

A plodding prologue shows viewers what happened many years ago when one Christian Crusader (played by Van Damme) decided to break off from the main group and bring together members of each religious order for a better way forward, guided by sacred texts that he was inspired to write. That man was killed, the last chapter of the sacred texts lost, and the potential new religion almost snuffed out before it had a chance to flourish.
In the present day, Van Damme plays Rudy Cafmeyer, a thief who might just end up searching for the sacred texts and encountering the small remnants of the loyal religious order when his father (Vernon Dobtcheff) goes missing on a visit to Jerusalem.

The Order could have gone in two directions. Either a fun romp that puts Van Damme out of his depth while a very few recognise him as some kind of chosen one who will find the sacred texts, perhaps, or a darker thriller, showing an organisation that has grown in power and influence over the years. Instead, it picks a third option that misguidedly mixes a bit of both. You get the fun moments, and Van Damme gets a few fight scenes, but you also get scenes that show Brian Thompson taking charge of the order and looking to move things forward with a less passive attitude than his predecessors.

I have mentioned this a few times now, and take no pleasure in it, but this is another film that is hindered by the fact it was made at a time when Van Damme seemed unable to emanate the charisma that had helped him to sell many of his earlier films. That sometimes doesn't matter when the rest of the cast work well, but they aren't good enough here. Thompson does well with his scenes, I always like to see him onscreen, and Charlton Heston appears for a few minutes, but neither Dobtcheff or Sofia Milos (playing a female officer tasked with looking after Van Damme's character until he can be deported) are very good.

The script, co-written by Les Weldon and Van Damme, isn't very good either. It tells viewers everything they need to know but does it in a way that is both clumsy and dull. It's also surprisingly humourless in scenes when you suspect a different leading man could have been given some fun dialogue and interactions with other characters.

All in all, this is a pretty bad film. The blame can be shared equally between director, writers, and star. Which means more blame gets heaped on Van Damme because he wears both his star hat AND co-writer hat when he wasn't really up to the task of either role.

3/10

I couldn't find many decent versions of the movie on disc so here is one Amazon.com link.

June-Claude Van Damme: Replicant (2001)

Another day, another film in which Jean-Claude Van Damme ends up an enemy of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Replicant is another interesting oddity from a time when, to put a positive spin on it, Van Damme was trying to take part in some different films that used his skills to varying effect. Did he overestimate his ability to make more than "just" action movies, or did he have a very optimistic agent with poor judgement? Or did he just get unlucky at times?

Michael Rooker plays Jake Riley, your typical movie cop. He's often angry, doesn't like being told what to do by people in suits, and has a personal connection to his most notorious case, chasing a serial killer - JCVD - who likes to kill women and set them on fire (hence him being dubbed "The Torch"). It turns out that a government agency has somehow created a clone of the killer - JCVD - and they want Riley to look after him and use him to apprehend "The Torch". As you might imagine, Riley doesn't like the idea. And he definitely doesn't like the replicant, who is given a fair amount of mistreatment and abuse until he starts to show how useful he can be, thanks to a ridiculous notion of genetic memories and a telepathic link. It's then a standard bit of cat and mouse action with a few fight scenes thrown in.

Like many of his movies from this period, Replicant isn't quite sure exactly what it wants to be. I'm not sure if Van Damme was just bad at picking projects with focus or whether the scripts - and this one was written by Les Weldon and Lawrence David Riggins - ended up being twisted out of shape in order to better fit their star actor. There are times when this feels gritty and grimy a la Seven and times when it's just another action film that happens to have more than one Van Damme in the mix (e.g. his first fight scene against two agents looking to take him back from Rooker).

Director Ringo Lam at least keeps things consistent when it comes to the visual style, and he doesn't overcomplicate things as the plot trundles along from A to B. He also doesn't stretch his leads, with Van Damme just having to move from ignorant innocent to slightly less-ignorant fighter (and, in his other role, evil dude who is just evil at all times) and Rooker doing his gruff and grumpy act that he can do so well.

There are some other people in the cast but this is really all about the relationship between the two leads, a familiarly tense dynamic that is done well. This could have been spun in a number of different ways (e.g. it's the kind of premise that often makes for an action comedy) but everyone involved plays it straight and keeps it quite dark.

Not without entertaining moments, despite the wobbly central idea, Replicant just falls short of being as good, or as much fun, as it could be. But it remains a surprisingly decent film. And it's much better than Maximum Risk (the other JCVD film that Ringo Lam directed).

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Shark In Venice (2008)

I am pretty convinced that nowadays most of the Baldwin clan just meet up once a week to bask in the glow of Alec's career because none of the others have been able to sustain a successful career once they had to offer people more than just the famous surname. Does that sound harsh? Well, I just sat through Shark In Venice (starring Stephen Baldwin) and you probably didn't. If you still want to watch it after reading this review then . . . . . . well . . . . .  I'd do the same so I can't hold it against you.

In case you're wondering if the title is a metaphor for some deep, troubling life issues then fear not. This film is about a shark in Venice. Stephen Baldwin plays someone who goes to Venice (with his partner, Laura, played by Vanessa - not Scarlett - Johansson) because his father was diving there and may be in trouble or even dead. After mere minutes in the city, he sees some dead bodies and starts insisting that there are sharks in the waters of Venice. He doesn't quite come out and say it, but it's the "this was no boating accident" homage. Anyway, there's a tough cop on the scene (Hilda van der Meulen), a shark and a serious criminal type (Giacomo Gonnella). And the shark is the best actor out of the lot.

Directed by Danny Lerner (who also directed Shark Zone and Raging Sharks, among others), and written by Les Weldon (who formed the story WITH Lerner, because you just can't think this stuff up all alone, hell no), Shark In Venice is laughably bad from start to finish.

Stephen Baldwin may not be the greatest actor in the world, but I've seen him do better than this. Perhaps the will to live started to leave his body as soon as he signed on to star in the film, I don't know. Scarle . . . . Vanessa Johansson is okay, she's the best of a bad bunch even though she's stuck with the same horrible script as everyone else. Hilda van der Meulen is terrible, Giacomo Gonnella is just as bad and the many generic henchmen run through the checklist as set out in "So You Want To Be A Generic Henchman?" - THE essential guide for those not wanting to be an evil leader but still wanting to take their place on the career ladder of crime.

Is it really as bad as I'm making it out to be? Well, despite one or two moments that use some fast editing to show the shark chomping on some divers, yes it is. The presence of the big fin is the reason it gets any points at all, unlike some movies that have shark in the title and then just try to show one decent shot in the last five minutes of the film. This is a film that shows a leg being bitten off during a scene in which a shark attacks one man left alone in the water before just carrying on with the rest of the movie while showing that same man as someone still very much classed among the bipedals of the world. I think that sums up the carelessness and laziness that the film seems to have throughout. Hence this review, something I tried to make into a bit of fun to help myself and any others who made it all the way through Shark In Venice. And I didn't even squeeze in my lame gag about The Bridge Of Sighs. Oh well, perhaps I can find some context for it when I finally review Don't Look Now.

2/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shark-in-Venice-DVD/dp/B001CD3PJM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365725401&sr=8-1&keywords=shark+in+venice