Kickboxer: Retaliation (2018)

The seventh movie in the Kickboxer franchise, holy crap. And lets be honest with ourselves, the first was the best and didn't need expanding further, but here we are. This movie is a direct sequel to the last entry 'Kickboxer: Vengeance' which was itself pretty dire.

The Plot: Tong Po is dead, Eric Sloane was avenged, and Kurt (Alain Moussi) is now a professional mixed martial artist. After a fight Kurt is basically kidnapped and awakens to find himself back in sticky Thailand in prison. It seems he has been brought back to Thailand for the death of Tong Po. It also seems Thomas Tang Moore (Christopher Lambert), the man who controls the underground fighting competition where Kurt defeated Tong Po, wants Kurt to fight his new champion (the man who replaced the now dead Tong Po). Moore offers Kurt various deals to get him out of prison and fight but naturally Kurt refuses because he's an idiot. This of course leads to Moore kidnapping Kurt's wife along with other forms of intimidation yadda yadda yadda and Kurt agrees to fight. I think you know how this goes from here on.

Right so first off the baddie character of Moore has bribed the Thai police (and some US Marshal?) into dragging Kurt all the way back to Thailand and slinging him in prison. All this without any form of official intervention from anyone in America or Thailand?? I mean I'm sure Moore is wealthy and could bribe some Thai cops and bigwigs but somehow I doubt he could bribe that many people across two countries in order to extradite Sloane with no questions asked. The fact that Kurt is tasered in the US and only wakes up back in Thailand is just beyond ridiculous.

Whilst Sloane is in prison (held by Moore's bribes it seems) Moore actually offers him 1 million Dollars to fight his new champion! Aaand of course Kurt declines this rather excellent offer, because of course he does. Predictable cliche one, whilst in prison all the other inmates wanna fight Kurt. Of course Kurt defeats them all easily because all these guys are your typical undernourished looking Thai males. Predictable cliche two, whilst in prison Kurt makes friends with other inmates who just happen to be really good fighters (and they're cameos). This includes Mike Tyson, various real MMA fighters, and...footballer Ronaldinho?

Predictable cliche three, whilst in prison Kurt also stumbles across Master Durand (JCVD) again, because of course he does. It seems Master Durand is now training prisoners for some reason. Not sure why he would be allowed to do this but whatever. So of course he decides to help Kurt once again. One problem, he's now blind due to Moore's treatment. Luckily that's really convenient for all that Jedi-esque type fighting where you rely on your senses and spiritual side etc...

Predictable clic...oh for Gods sake there are just loads in here. Kurt's new inmate buddies help him train for the big fight once he agrees to it. So Tyson teaches him boxing, the other MMA fighters teach him...umm...more MMA. And Ronaldinho teaches him...dodging? By kicking footballs at him?? What??? What I don't get is Kurt is supposed to be this ultimate MMA fighter who already proved his worth and skills by killing Tong Po. So why does he need training from these bums in a Thai prison??

After all the obligatory prison set guff and a complete rip-off of the famous Bruce Lee 'Enter the Dragon' mirror sequence; we eventually get to the big showdown between Kurt and the new champion who is basically some massively overweight white guy. Sure he's big and wide, but he's also fat. The difference in this movie is that Moore and his scientists have been experimenting on the new champion with a combination of steroids and adrenaline making him über strong. So now not only does this final showdown look like a scene from a Mortal Kombat movie complete with Lambert sitting on a throne in a dingy torch lit dungeon setting. The big villain Kurt must fight is some gigantic roided up monster who literally roars all the time.

This is the main problem with this movie, the big finale is essentially a remake of the classic finale from the first classic movie. Its not a scene for scene remake but they have clearly copied it visually with all the usual beats. But again there is one main difference with this movie, and again its not good. In this movie the bad guy does actually kill Sloane in the finale. Yes you read that right, Kurt Sloane is actually killed in the finale. But fret not because Kurt's kidnapped wife manages to bring him back from the dead with one of the adrenaline/steroid concoctions used by the baddies (despite her not being a doctor, but I guess he was dead so...what the hell). Kurt comes around, shakes off the fact he had just expired for around 10 minutes and goes on to win the fight. Merica!

So basically what I'm saying here is, this movie offers nothing new whatsoever. Its exactly the same spiel as almost everything else that has come before it and is literally a complete waste of time and money. This is the seventh movie in the franchise, what is the bloody point in redoing the same final showdown from the first movie??? The plot is so fecking mundane and basic, so many tropes Jesus! Van Damme wasn't required, he was more of a token to lure in fans as was Lambert. And not only that the fighting wasn't even that good! Yeah sure if you're into MMA then you may get a kick out of this (no pun intended) but in all honesty watching a real MMA fight would probably be better.

I think the issue here is thus. Back in the day with the original you had a young, somewhat mysterious, up and coming martial artist from Europe with a curious accent. You had Jean Claude Van Damme in his glistening prime. The genre was ripe for the era and Van Damme (along with other classic action stars) was simply at the right place in the right time. Those early flicks were just lighting in a bottle and I don't think you can recapture it. Plus these days there are so many martial artists/musclemen with rippling physiques, there's nothing special about it anymore.

3/10

Black Water (2018)

Apparently the fifth collaboration between the mighty Dolph Lundgren and the muscles from Brussels...kinda. K I'll be honest with you here, don't expect too much with this OK.

The Plot: Holy shit there is some double cross in this picture, I'm still not really sure what the goal was here but lets go. Scott Wheeler (JCVD) is a deep cover agent who trying to identify a leak within the CIA with his female partner. His partner has a USB drive which contains an algorithm to activate secret agents (what?) whilst Wheeler has the activation key. Naturally Wheeler's partner is killed resulting in him being captured under suspicion of going rogue. Wheeler awakens on-board a CIA blacksite located on a submarine. On-board are various CIA  agents, some are genuine and of course some are not. What follows is a convoluted mess as Wheeler and some remaining goodie agents try to escape the sub with the drive.

Again I honesty had no real clue what the hell was happening whilst watching this because it is a real mess. The plot is all over the show and never really makes much sense. I still don't really get what this USB drive could actually do. Activate secret agents? How do you mean? Reveal their locations? Are they under some sort of mental control? I'm not even sure how activating these agents would be of any use, unless they're super agents or something. In the end it doesn't really matter because the drive and its purpose are more of a mcguffin than anything. Its just an object for the various jacked-up agents to fight over.

Oh yeah, speaking of being jacked-up (rather muscular), literally everyone in this movie is jacked-up. Every single agent looks like they've been on a four course meal of steroids for the last six months. Oh and most have cropped hair with tattoo sleeves and long beards, because having a long beard is the thing now apparently. I believe its what you call being a hipster? Only with big muscles.

Anyway the entire movie is set inside this submarine which of course isn't really a submarine but a very very bad selection of sets. Now when I say bad I mean bad. They generally consist of grey painted corridors and rooms with some control panels and every shot being lit in either red or green (because all subs are lit with red and green bulbs you see). Everything is dark of course to hide the bad sets where ever possible, hence the red and green lighting. Every now and then we might get a shot which seems to have been filmed on location, most probably inside a naval ship of some kind, but these are sparse.

All the action is pretty terrible. All the shoots outs are laughable because everyone misses the good guys every time, often at point blank range. If any good guy does get shot its usually in the shoulder, unless they're expendable. I also had to ask myself, surely with all these shoot outs the sub would be in danger of getting damaged badly, maybe springing a leak perhaps. Nah, they just keep blasting at each other and hitting the walls or pipes or whatever, no worries. In between any gun fights Van Damme of course manages to kick some bad guys in the face at close quarters. I say close quarters but in reality these sets are nice and wide so Van Damme is able to perform his usual repertoire of kickassery, because realism.

Oh Christ I nearly forgot about old Dolph. Well clearly the director nearly forgot about old Dolph too because he's hardly in this. He obviously gets top billing on the poster alongside Van Damme to obviously attract the hardcore fans; but its pretty blatant false advertising on said poster (a poster which sees Van Damme blatantly de-aged). Dolph plays another prisoner on-board the sub who is eventually released by Wheeler for help. He then kicks a little butt and literally disappears for the rest of the movie. That is until the very end where we get a completely pointless final scene with him.

The acting is generally bad all round because they've seemingly hired body builders with no experience in acting. The main characters are a tad better but not much. Most are unknown to me but I guess the best of the bunch goes to Al Sapienza who plays one of the main CIA heads who may or may not be Wheeler's friend (intrigued much?). But apparently they only wanted good looking sexy people to aide Van Damme's character. Special mention to Jasmine Waltz and her plastic doll-like face and body (obvious surgery).

The poster does look good for this I can't deny but alas its utter crap my friends. Shoddy all round, very fake looking, poor acting, poor everything! I think this has to be the first really bad straight to DVD type movie I've seen with both Dolph and Van Damme. I know they have made some lower budget things in the past but this really takes the cake.

2/10

Double Team (1997)

This movie is believed to be the last action flick from old Van Damage to achieve a theatrical release. However, apparently this is not true, from what I've read Australia got three more offerings after this. I actually find that hard to believe really, looking back at this. What do we have here? A movie about an odd pairing, a double team action flick actually called double team! And what better way to really mix things up in search of some originality than teaming up with an actual basketball star. One could also say what better way to try and milk cash from the dumb gullible public.

Yes Van Damme is the star here naturally, but enter Dennis Rodman, one of the Chicago Bulls top players from a superstar team that was (at the time) virtually unbeatable. Rodman was essentially the perfect gimmick, he was a notorious player who would often clash with his opponents and game officials whilst at the same time managing to be highly effective. His crazy, bad boy, rock 'n' roll visage of tattoos, piercings and dyed hair was also a big lure and quite unusual for the time. This was an era before top sportsmen covered themselves in tattoos and had severe cyber razor haircuts, hence Rodman's outrageous look was always front page news for sports.

For any Europeans reading, if you took this approach, it would in essence be the equivalent of casting Neymar or maybe Eric Cantona (minus the tats) alongside Van Damme. What better way to bring in the big bucks for your standard action crime thriller comedy.

Did I say standard action crime thriller comedy? Why yes I did, and here's why. Jack Quinn (JCVD) is a counter terrorist agent who is supposedly killed in action trying to take down his nemesis Stavros (Mickey Rourke). Quinn is obviously not dead but instead has been stuck on a secret island colony for agents that are too valuable to kill off and too dangerous to set free. There he must continue to assist in counter terrorism but in secret, away from the rest of the world forever. In the mean time old Stavros kidnaps Quinn's wife because some how he knows Quinn is still alive. Quinn must now break free from the colony to save his wife. Spoiler alert! Quinn does break out and winds up hiring Yaz (Rodman) to help him in his quest.

K so first lets just remember that this is an old JCVD action flick so there will be many many cliches, tropes and stereotypical bullshit. The colony idea was a nice touch, I did like that and I felt that plot could have been the entire movie. Quinn simply trying to escape a secret government island which houses super spies supposedly killed in action. That is a pretty solid prison premise right there and they could of really explored that with lots of fighting action. Sure its unoriginal but it sounds like it could of worked.

Aside from the neat colony aspect the rest of this movie is pretty trashy really. For a start there is a huge amount of dubbing here which is really obvious. I've no idea why its like this but it just comes across as shoddy. In the original colony part of the plot there is a whole subplot about each imprisoned agent having a 'guardian' that watches over them in case they try to escape. In Quinn's case its his old agent friend Alex (Paul Freeman). The movie sets up this whole angle between these two characters yet it goes nowhere, literally. When Quinn escapes some other bloke pops up to try and stop him. No clue how this guy knew about Quinn's escape plan, he's just there and gets killed, so aimless.

Even though Mickey Rourke's baddie character has a stupid name this guy was genuinely intimidating, to look at at least. This was at a time before Rourke got fucked up from boxing and then proceeded to have various bad facelifts so he does look good. Rourke has clearly gotten into shape for the role and learnt some martial arts too; this combination of heavy muscle and moves does make Rourke look like a worthy opponent for Van Damme. Indeed the final fight scene between the pair is actually pretty darn good with some thumping fisticuffs. Again though the use of dubbing and an obvious stunt double for Rourke makes it look and sound shoddy in places.

As for the main man Rodman, well he lives up to his extravagant flamboyant image by dressing in the most absurd ways possible. When I say absurd I mean luminous skintight lycra, luminous vests, armbands, his awful nose and earrings and various sets of bizarre looking shades. All the while his hair changes colour throughout which I don't get because when does he have the time to do this process?? I should also mention that during the movie he throws out numerous corny quips that are basketball related, and towards the end of the movie he runs around topless for no apparent reason. Obviously the director (Tsui Hark) wanted to get his moneys worth from Rodman so why not have him topless showing off his ink and whatnot.

Speaking of the finale, its supposedly set within the Colosseum in Rome...oh boy. Well for starters clearly its not, it was actually shot at Arles Amphitheatre in France. Secondly the entire arena area is fully lit up when Quinn and Stavros fight...like how? Why would the arena be lit up at night? Surely it would have been completely locked down overnight and surely if all the lights were on someone (security) would notice. Thirdly, Stavros has a tiger on hand to set upon Quinn...ugh! This has to be the most ludicrous part of the movie, where the literal fuck did he get the tiger? Did he steal it just for this one meeting or do they have tigers at Arles Amphitheatre? Why not just bring lots of henchmen and guns? What if the tiger didn't wanna attack Quinn and just laid down and went to sleep? Lastly, Stavros had already set up mines in the arena, which means he presumably broke in beforehand, killed all the security? and turned on all the lights, OK. But please tell me, why set up all those mines when you yourself could step...oh too late.

In the end a mine blows up the entire amphitheatre with Stavros and the poor old tiger. Said explosion manages to destroy the entire historic site in a huge ball of fire and death that Quinn saves everyone from behind a vending machine. Yeah...because you have lots of soda vending machines within historical Roman sites (how did it not melt anyway?). At the same time Quinn's super agent friend Alex turns up, obviously to catch or kill him because he's Quinn's 'guardian'. This got me a little confused because I didn't think these agents were allowed off the colony to find someone who has escaped. Why not just use government forces or the military or something, the same people that brought him to the colony in the first place perhaps. Spoiler alert Alex lets Quinn go because...duh!

I've been hard on this movie and for good reason, its littered with farcical nonsense, bad dubbing and a totally bonkers finale. The whole thing is a very stupid and very pathetic Bond-esque thriller with lame comedy. The only highlights that save the movie from being a total disaster are Rourke's great villain and some decent fight sequences. As said the addition of Rodman was a completely tacky gimmick and unfortunately that's what the movie is most remember for.

5/10

Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016)

JCVD was but the learner, now he is the master...and so forth. Here we go again with yet another reboot of a classic movie. Well not so much a classic movie per say, a classic in the JCVD filmography at least and for people of a certain age that grew up with 18/R rated martial arts flicks that were considered almost taboo or video nasties in their time. So this is indeed a complete reboot in the sense that it's almost identical to the original movie except for the odd twist plot-wise. Of course any new twists aren't really anything to write home about so...errr, don't write home about them? Right.

The movie kicks off with the all new Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi, yes I've never heard of him either) turning up at Tong Po's (Dave Batista) home/temple/fighting camp, whatever the hell it is, to be trained by the master. Literally within 5 minutes of him knocking on the door we are thrust into kickboxing (Mortal Kombat looking) mayhem as he must take on a string of other trainees to prove himself. This doesn't take too long before he's beaten...but he can stay anyway because plot reasons. Later that night he tries to murder Tong Po in his sleep with a gun, but he fails and gets arrested (but not beaten to death??). But wait a minute, wait just a cotton picking minute. In the original franchise, Tong Po kills the Sloane brothers in 'kickboxer 2' in revenge for beating him in the ring in 'Kickboxer'. Now you expect this kind of act from the villain in a movie, but here we are seeing the hero attempting to do the same thing. Sure Tong Po killed Kurt's brother in the ring, but in this new movie it doesn't happen in a nasty way, its seen as the risk of illegal fighting, you know the risks. So essentially Tong Po could be seen as not doing anything wrong because its dog eat dog in the illegal fighting, world so to speak. Yet here we are seeing the hero trying to kill the victor in a cowardly act, so how are we supposed to root for this guy?

In case you're wondering if this movie dispenses with the plot set up surrounding the death of Kurt's brother and how he got to Thailand because it starts off differently, well fear not because we get a lengthy flashback to cover all that (ugh!). I actually thought the movie was gonna try and be a little bit original at first but no, its all redone but in flashback. Of course as I mentioned before the plot does differ slightly, when Kurt gets arrested for trying to kill Tong Po he meets up with an attractive police woman whom he starts a relationship with. Initially this goes nowhere really but she does help Kurt avoid being deported and covers for him on occasion. Essentially she's only there for a bit of an emotional pull and sex for one scene. 

Anyway we're only here for fights, we know the basic plot outline, so what's the deal? Well there's an initial fight amongst some elephants, actually using the elephants as platforms to fight off...and it looks shit. This is because they clearly use fake elephants, greenscreen and CGI...oh sweet Jesus! Then Kurt meets up with the trainer who trained his now dead brother, master Durand (JCVD). Naturally this being a quirky reboot and JCVD wanting to be hip and cool, the character wears shades all the time and a little stupid porkpie-esque hat. Initially Durand refuses to train Kurt, but then they fight each other, Durand whips his ass, and for some reason decides to train him after all, because plot reasons.

What follows is virtually all the same shit we saw in the original movie. All the same training methods but slightly different, all the same types of spiritual images and shots set against traditional Thai backdrops, and even another bar fight set up by Durand when he thinks Kurt is ready. Difference here is he loses, so its back to yet more training montages using some of the same footage (ugh!). At the same time as all this, we do get some scenes with the police who are up to something, not too sure what because they speak in Thai with no subs sooo. None of it is hardly important anyway because we all know the outcome of this story. Again another slight change in plan is a bit more focus on Tong Po as he worships in his temple. Strangely he doesn't really come off as a bad guy in this, he's just a bloody good fighter that is too aggressive or too strong even. End of the day all he's doing is just fighting to win and he didn't appear to do anything illegal in the fight against Kurt's brother, except kill him, but did he even intend to do that? In no way is he an all out villain like in the original movie.

Oh and the film also has Gina Carano as a crooked fight organiser that assists Tong Po. If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned her much its because she does literally nothing and is of no use in this movie. She offers Kurt the match against Po originally...aaand disappears for virtually the rest of the flick. She's basically been cast just to add another big name to the movies poster and advertising. 

But yeah, pushing all this meaningless crap aside, we all know what's coming, the big kickass fight finale between Po and Kurt. Does this fight match up to the original? Can it save this film? Nope! No it can't. Why you ask? Well because its the exact same spiel we've all seen before and done much better in the original movie. Yeah Batista looks huge and has lots of tattoos, there's way more blood, more gut-wrenching sound effects and the fight goes on for way way longer, but its old hat. Once again it all feels like something outta Mortal Kombat as after each stage of fighting they are given deadly assistance. First it broken glass stuck to their knuckles ala the original movie once again, and then its swords because that's a fair fight isn't it. Kurt is trained in kickboxing, since when is he trained in sword fighting? Ditto for Po. Kurt basically gets his ass handed to him for the entire fight, right up until the last bout where he suddenly feels the eye of the tiger or whatever, whilst the crowd starts to chant 'Nuk su kow!'. He then proceeds to kick Po's ass so much he dies from it...hurrah!

I don't get it, I just don't get it at all, what is the point of this movie? Why does this movie even exist? The original is a decent adult brawler with a South East Asian backdrop and plenty of spiritual mysticism and spice, much like JCVD's other top early flick 'Bloodsport'. There was absolutely no reason to remake this movie because it was always gonna be trash. Yeah they can add big names, have even flashier martial arts and glossy set pieces (well you'd think), but at the end of the day all that shit just doesn't work anymore because this genre has past. Movies like this were shit hot back in the day when I was a kid, I saw the original flick at a young age because they were seen as action epics of the time (as was JCVD), but those days are long gone. Jesus they even tried to remake 'Bloodsport' back in 1996 with JCVD ('The Quest') and that failed miserably even then! Bottom line, there is absolutely no reason to watch this at all when you can watch the far superior original.

4/10 

Black Eagle (1988)

Ah one of those old JCVD movies that wasn't actually a JCVD movie. I remember being fooled by this back in the day when I was a kid, the cool looking movie poster with both Kosugi and JCVD looking uber badass, the movie title in that striking old USSR logo, so much promise from one image. This movie is very much like JCVD's other early action flick 'No Retreat, No Surrender', he doesn't appear much in that film either, plus he also plays yet another baddie Russian character. So back in the 80's JCVD was kinda typecast as a Russian henchman, guess he had that look.

The plot actually revolves around Sho Kosugi, a special ops operative who is called up to find some downed hi-tech equipment from the bottom of the Mediterranean. Some laser tracking devices went down with a jet that was shot down by whoever for whatever reasons. This is all set in Malta and is now very dated to look at of course, in fact the entire thing looks very much like an old James Bond flick, especially with the whole downed jet with hi-tech equipment scenario. It all feels very much like 'Never Say Never Again' to me. At first I thought this was just me but no! this movie does actually try its best to rip-off the Bond franchise. Hell there's even a smoky casino sequence with the main villain and his sidekicks at the roulette table facing off against Kosugi. The whole scene is clearly lifted straight outta the 007 universe, 'Dr. No' much!

The location work for this movie is extremely impressive I must say, its easily the best aspect of the feature. Every scene is shot in and around the beautiful and awe-inspiring sand coloured stone structures of Malta and its various famous landmarks. To be quite honest most of this movie is actually rather dull frankly, all we see for the most part is Kosugi pussy footing around like a beige coloured ninja or swimming in crystal clear blue waters. He also has a sidekick, some other skinny dude who aids him with intel. The rest of the time it cuts to scenes with his two kids who eventually get kidnapped, and that's the only reason they are there...to be kidnapped. Sure Kosugi's bosses used the kids to get him to do this assignment but after that it makes no real sense why they hang around in the face of obvious danger. If all this hadn't been shot against this stunningly historic, sand coloured land of ancient wonder then it would be completely pointless.

After lots of rather mundane dialog and hints of JCVD's grandness, we finally get a showdown between him and Kosugi. The setting is perfect, atop of some crumbling derelict old fortress wall (or so it seemed), a blazing sun high in the clear blue sky, both men glistening in the Mediterranean heat (oh my!), JCVD vs Kosugi, round 1, fight! Annnnd its all over in less than three minutes, yep a few kicks, a few ducks and parries, a bit of blood around the chops and its all over. We now have to wait to the very end for another face-off, ugh!

Yep then its back to more of Kosugi prancing around with his skinny sidekick as they create their plan to infiltrate the villains main ship, thing is I can't remember why. Not that any of that matters now because this is the lead up to the main battle, the main battle against Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his hordes of henchmen aboard his...oh wait. Yep we now get a quick 'Commando' rip-off with Kosugi gearing up and covering himself in black tar by the looks of it, he does a sloppy job of it too sheesh! Lock n load with a bigass crossbow to rip-off Rambo a little bit, then its off we go to kill all the bad guys. This all leads to the finale fight with JCVD, round 2, fight! It lasts a bit longer this time but it never really hits it stride, both men seem to take turns in doing all their signature moves whilst trying not to hurt each other too much. Some nice swing and misses with sweeps and roundhouse kicks etc...but nothing that will get you frothing for more.

I lost the plot ages ago with this, they were after these laser tracking devices and I'm sure Kosugi found them and won the movie halfway through, I dunno. It had to lead up to some sort of big showdown with guns and plosions. Its a very odd movie really, Kosugi isn't much of a leading man or fighter judging by this, plus his accent is very heavy and hard to follow at times. JCVD is wasted but does make a fun bad guy, whilst the main villains are pretty pathetic, completely non-threatening, just suits. Clearly they were trying for a slick Bond-esque type romp with semi-serious overtones, yet at the same time they throw in little bits from other franchises too just to make sure, they even get Kosugi's kids in on the action.

In the end the plot goes MIA halfway through and it all becomes a very lame excuse just to get Kosugi facing off against JCVD (in a pretty location). The problem being its all a completely wasted opportunity because most of this film sucks, if anything it serves as a fantastic tourist advertisement for the Island of Malta and its idyllic cobbled backstreets.

3/10

Pound of Flesh (2015)

JCVD is back! he's 54 years old but nevertheless he's back kinda doing what he does best, kinda. This new action thriller is his latest offering and it lets not beat around the bush here, this movie is really plumbing the depths of crapola.

The story goes like this, JCVD has a brother who has a daughter that needs a kidney transplant or she will die. JCVD has donated his kidney to save her but amazingly the day before this very important operation JCVD gets stitched up (pun intended) by some tart in a club and awakens the next day to discover he's been the victim of organ theft! I mean seriously, what are the odds of that huh! talk about bad luck. Of all the crimes that could of happened to him, they go and pinch his kidney! just when he needs it. If they had just nicked his wallet everything would have been OK sheesh!

So JCVD now has to trawl through the seedy underbelly of some Chinese city (that's where its set) to find the culprits that stole his kidney. It seems pointless because you'd of thought they would have used the kidney straight away but never mind. Again, luckily, JCVD happens to be a ex-black ops special agent (straight outta the Steven Seagal school of action movies) so he knows everything there is to know about kicking ass and killing people in various ways. Along for the ride on this time limited quest he has his soppy, not very tough brother at his side and some ancient old Chinese master type person who is some kind of kingpin or criminal know-it-all? actually not got a clue. Oh and not forgetting some bimbo he picks up along the way, the same bimbo that tricked him in the first place I might add but really she has a heart of gold.

So the plot is ridiculous but I didn't expect much. What made me laugh was the fact these big time criminals cut open JCVD, nicked his kidney and then left him money, medication and instructions on how to recover! Surely the easiest way to get away with this would be to kill him, isn't it obvious the guy would probably cause trouble and possibly come after you. What makes it worse is the fact the bad guys seems to know who he is, so they know he can kick ass and cause trouble. The argument that they might need his other kidney makes no sense either because I'm sure I've read you can use kidneys from dead bodies.

Anyway the plot aside, this movie really really looks bad, I mean really bad, the production values are low and it all looks very cheap. For a start the use of greenscreens here is atrocious! every time anyone is in a car its a greenscreen, and a very very obvious greenscreen at that. They clearly had no money for extras because when there is suppose to be a crowd of people its pathetically small. For instance JCVD sneaks into this undercover fighting arena run by Triads, its clearly meant to be this big brawl fest with lots of sexy female patrons milling about, hired goons, people cheering etc...But when we see an aerial shot of the fighting ring there must be about 50 people there including the goons and fighters, plus you can see its set in a large open space that isn't being utilised because they don't have the budget or people.

Other action set pieces are laughable bad such as the high speed car chase at around 30mph. I swear this one car chase is so obviously being shot at slow speeds its cringeworthy. To make matters even worse, and even more funny, JCVD and co are shot against those hilariously obvious greenscreens again. So you have these cars supposedly tearing around when actually they're going quite slow, then they cut to JCVD inside the car against an obvious greenscreen! At one point the car hits some roadwork bollards and barriers in real time. It then cuts to JCVD inside the car and clearly someone behind the camera chucking some bollards on the car! (I laughed out loud right there).

Still we all know why we're here, to see JCVD fight...and that's all. Prepare for a shock, JCVD doesn't quite have it anymore folks, either that or the film crew had no idea how to film a fight...or a film. The fights are so so badly shot and edited here, you don't feel the hits, you don't get that adrenaline rush when contact is made, everything seems so weak, the angles are awkward and most of the time the lighting is bad too. Not that there is a lot of martial arts going on anyway, you get a fight at the start and the obligatory fight at the end with the main martial arts opponent (Darren Shahlavi). In between that there is a gun battle when JCVD storms the bad guys lair with yet more laughably bad action complete with CGI bullet hits, fake exploding doors and henchmen that miss at point blank range.

No idea why the female character is here because she stands around doing nothing. At one point JCVD and co retreat to a family summer house which appears to be some kind of huge log cabin (in or near a Chinese city?), but somehow the bad guys knew they would do this and booby trapped it. The main bad guys lair is some huge courtyard house with his own personal army of useless henchmen, oh and he's some crusty old British gent type naturally (stereotypical nod to British Imperialism perhaps?). Oh and he sits around watching JCVD and his main henchman fight like the Emperor did in 'RoTJ'.

This really is one of the worst JCVD movies I've seen and one of the worst action movies I've seen in along time. I know some of the older action stars like Dolph and Seagal make straight to DVD shit in general but some of them aren't too bad at times, Dolph's are usually OK actually, but this has to rank as one of the worst. Apart from the fact the movies main lure, the fighting, is poor and badly choreographed, there is little of it and what's left looks woefully cheap and nasty. This really is bottom of the barrel stuff.

2/10

Welcome to the Jungle (2013)

Well here it is, the long awaited comedy starring both JCVD and his son Kris Van Varenberg, can you feel it? The plot is all about a group of office workers who are taken on a weekend island survival course to boost their leadership and teamwork skills, a wilderness seminar. The group are lead by a tough military expert in the form of...you guessed it JCVD. Low and behold things go tits up and the group must fend for themselves for real.

I kinda got an 'Office Space' vibe from this film within the first 20 minutes or so (that vibe quickly died though), the group of characters that we see are a typical bunch of desk jockeys, suits and the obligatory one or two hot females. Unfortunately we only get to know a few of these characters throughout the film, most are just background fodder and some just pop up outta nowhere as far as I could see. Not good considering its all about a group of people trapped on an island, you'd think we would have to know them all so we could get behind the story, problem is there are too many really, around 20.

Straight away the film has gaping plot holes, where exactly in the US do these people live and work? They hop on this cargo plane and take what seems like a half hour flight and like magic they arrive on some uninhabited tropical island! Then for some unknown reason the pilot dies? yet this never really causes any concern for anyone accept for the fact they appear to be trapped on the island. On and this island also has wild tigers on it? well one, maybe that was for the comedy element but sheesh come on!

Most of the film is a Lord of the Flies style romp as half the group go crazy on the hallucinogenic drugs that the slimy backstabbing office team leader spikes the coffee with. He then proclaims himself God of the island, the alpha male of his alpha male tribe, and basically eats drinks sleeps and has orgies all night whilst keeping his tribe in order with an iron fist...of comedy...of sorts. The other few office workers led by the weak skinny office nerd, try to find a way off the island and are basically the boyscouts of the story.

You can imagine the kind of humorous dialog your gonna find here, lots of primitive sexist, alpha male orgy based quips. Most tiny giggles come from the drugged up tribe but don't get your hopes up for all out hilarity.

The entire cast are complete unknowns to me which isn't a bad thing but none of them are particularly interesting to watch, and none of them are exactly funny either. The only guy that has any sort of decent amusing dialog is the baddie leader Rob Huebel, but its sparse. JCVD only proves he is no good in a comedy (plus he's hardly in it), you could say he's mocking himself but really its just poor humour. His son's only stand out moment is getting a boner watching the two male leaders fight half naked.

The film is odd really, its advertised as a comedy, not a dark comedy even, just a comedy, and its not really funny. It has its few moments that make you smile but then it swings wildly into a semi serious state that is just dark, kinda confusing. Admittedly the films plot didn't pan out as I expected it too, I kinda thought it would go a certain way with a twist but no! they actually stick to their guns with the original stupid plot route. That's the films only positive note really, you're not entirely sure which route the plot will go and you're never entirely sure if JCVD's character is actually playing it for real. It could all go only two ways, the whole setup is real, or the whole setup is fake, so small kudos there I guess.

Other than that the whole film is a bit of a miss frankly, nothing much happens, its not a good comedy and its not even visually enticing I'm afraid. I think the fact that half the group are drugged up all the time takes away the comedy aspect because they are all acting zombified. It turns the film into a slightly more sinister game rather than a dumb cheeky witty comedy which is what they were aiming for.

4.5/10

Enemies Closer (2013)

Van Damme is back in action and this time he's the bad guy...again. This Peter Hyams directed action fest is a throw back to the 80's and early 90's but not in a good way unfortunately, its literately like going back in time and watching a straight to the videoshop Seagal flick.

There are some drugs at the bottom of a lake and JCVD and his bad guys want it. Little do they know there is a park ranger who stands in there way...Tom Everett Scott? errr yeah that guy. But wait! little do they know that before they turned up to try and grab these drugs Orlando Jones came along to try and kill Scott for not saving his brother in a war torn scenario years earlier (Scott is an ex-SEAL you see).

Both of these loose cannons, that's Everett and Jones, are now tangled up in this mess and must fight for their lives against JCVD, his son (again) and his henchmen. They gotta stop these bad guys taking off with the drugs and they gotta work together even though they don't like each other, plus one of them is white and the other is black...just to spice things up.

What can I say? this has to be the most cliched flick I've seen for some time. Every action flick cliche they could muster is shown here in all its glory. The bad guys are French Canadian so this gives the excuse for JCVD to have some wild eccentric Euro-esque blonde bouffant quiff that makes him look like a cultured down n out artist. All the action is set within a national park type setting at night so expect lots of Indy style booby traps, darkness and generally not being able to see what's going on. The only thing they left out was the obligatory snake bite moment.

Everytime one bad guy gets the chance to kill someone point blank they pause and talk endlessly until the moment has passed. JCVD does this over and over it becomes annoying...just shoot the guy!!! then you win!!! ugh!!!. People manage to miss each other point blank when it just seems impossible to do so, weapons are available for use to make things easier at times but they are conveniently forgotten about to ensure a good fight.

Towards the end there is a big assault rifle that gets dropped...but hey lets just knife fight and grapple instead. One bad guy gets his leg spiked by a wooden stake but carries on never the less. There's the crazy old man in the woods bit who tries to fend off the bad guys ('Hard Target') and of course the standard double cross at the end by the person you least expect. Oh and at the very end...I don't wanna give it away but Jesus Van Damme you could of just jumped over the side, you had plenty of time if you hadn't come out with that unnecessary last quip.

There is so much I could mention its hilarious, of course the film isn't meant to be an accurate flick but its definitely meant to be a serious action flick. The two hero leads play it damn straight despite being utterly useless, Scott is a bad actor and not a convincing action man. Jones just does stuff any old sidekick would do in this scenario...generally turning up at the last second to bail Scott out.

Really the whole thing is so ridiculous, the best thing about it is watching JCVD spew out all his cheesy one liners and dialog with that hairdo. Had this come out about 15 years ago it probably would have gone down well. These days its just hokey as hell and its meant to be a serious action flick!. Funny thing is you can tell they really tried hard to give it this kind of stylised night vision-esque survival quality visually.

I love the unintentionally funny final moment right at the climax of the films final action sequence. As the music swells to its peak and the camera quickly closes in on Scott's face so he can calmly say his final action man quip...'almost'.

3.5/10