Van Damme

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...In this one, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a French cop (to explain the accent) who discovers he has a twin brother heavily involved with the Russian mob. This, the second film in what is to become the Van Damme twin trilogy, is the second worst Van Damme film after Cyborg. Not one thing in this movie makes sense at all. After his brother's death, Alain (Van Damme) travels to New York where everyone mistakes him for his brother Mikhail, including his brother's old flame (Natasha Henstridge) and two incredibly dim FBI agents. The convoluted plot wouldn't be a problem if there were some cool action scenes to drive the film and fool the audience into thinking its fun. Sadly, even Hong Kong action maestro Ringo Lam (City On Fire and Jackie Chan's Twin Dragons) couldn't save this movie even if he wanted to. Hopefully, he'll follow his protégé...

Mohammed 24.07.2000 · Read review
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Review of Maximum Risk (DVD)

Van Damme's finest hour

Advantages: Great performance from Van Damme
Disadvantages: Not your typical action flick

...You know, I've always thought that Jean-Claude Van Damme got a raw deal from Hollywood. Talented, charismatic and undeniably athletic, he was a high-kicking sensation when he burst onto the action scene in the late-80's. But poor career choices and well-documented personal problems meant he never quite hit the big time as an action star. These days, people largely think of him as the king of B-movies, lumping him in with fellow low-rent actor Steven Segal. But whereas Segal's career floundered under the weight of his ego, lack of personality and expanding waistline, Van Damme's is a more interesting and, in some ways, more tragic story. JCVD is a work of fiction based around reality. And the reality, in this case, is Van Damme himself. The film opens by introducing Van Damme as a faded, over the hill action star. His agent can...

Dr-Jones 19.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of JCVD (DVD)

Van Damme's finest hour - great film

Advantages: Great acting by Van Damme
Disadvantages: If you go into it expecting a conventional action flick, you'll be disappointed

...You know, I've always felt that Jean-Claude Van Damme got a raw deal from Hollywood. Talented, charismatic and undeniably athletic, he was a high-kicking sensation when he burst onto the action scene in the late-80's. But poor career choices and well-documented personal problems meant he never quite hit the big time as an action star. These days, people largely think of him as the king of B-movies, lumping him in with fellow low-rent actor Steven Segal. But whereas Segal's career floundered under the weight of his ego, lack of personality and expanding waistline, Van Damme's is a more interesting and, in some ways, more tragic story. JCVD is a work of fiction based around reality. And the reality, in this case, is Van Damme himself. The film opens by introducing Van Damme as a faded, over the hill action star. His agent can't get...

Dr-Jones 14.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of JCVD

DAMM FINE BEER

Advantages: Surprisingly good
Disadvantages: Not many

...AK Damm 1876 was produced to celebrate the founding of the Damm brewery in (wait for it) 1876 in Barcelona by a guy called Augustus Kuentzmann. Yes, you guessed right, he wasn't a native of Catalan, but an expat from Alsace. He decided to brew a type of beer he was familiar with, but the locals weren't. And so a legend was born...or at the very least, an uninteresting story. These days, the Damm brewery produce a modest range of different beers, the most famous being Estrella Damm and Voll Damm, but here's what they say about AK Damm: "Pure malt from selected varieties and hops from the German Hallertau region give this beer its smooth personality." Speaking of Alsations... An Alsatian went into a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: 'Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.' The clerk examined...

proxam 21.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of SA Damm AK Damm 1876

Double Van Damme - Double Impact

Advantages: A kick ass movie
Disadvantages: It's not rocket science

...Mr Van Damme is one of fortunes favoured few - a famous Belgian. (OK who thought he was French). He was a renowned body builder and karate expert in his home country before he made a fledgling career in Hong Kong ku fu movies and subsequently moved out to Hollywood in the early 1980's, where he got his big break in the Seattle karate film No Retreat No Surrender. So what about this film then? Made in 1991, it's a martial arts film with Van Damme taking the parts of both twin brothers. Stop laughing at the back there. Twins by the name of Chad and Alex Wagner are forcibly split up after the murder of their parents by a Hong Kong triad. Alex stays in the former British colony ending up as a smuggler/run runner, while Chad somehow (it isn't explained) ends up in Los Angeles as a personal trainer. To make matters even...

pinkmatchstick 23.12.2005 · Read review
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Review of Double Impact (DVD)

Don't give a damn about Van Damme

Advantages: Watchable enough action film
Disadvantages: Wooden acting, weak plot

...his wife does not die? I missed the whole Jean-Claude Van Damme sensation, because I was overseas at the time. In fact, the only time I've ever seen him is during the brief role he had as Rachel's love interest in Friends! I have heard a lot of good things about him though; particularly with respect for this film, for which I have rarely read a bad review. So although I am not a huge fan of action films, I decided to give this a go. Walker is played by Van Damme. As expected, Van Damme gave a typical action flick performance, with some pretty good fighting scenes. Shame though that he can't really act. I found him wooden and unbelievable apart from when he was fighting. What made it worse for me was this terrible bouffant haircut that he had when playing his 2004 character. He looked like he had just walked out of the 1980s and I was...

sunmeilan 29.04.2007 · Read review
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Review of Timecop (DVD)

I am Van Damme I HAVE MUSCLE RARGH

Advantages: Great if you love watching good low budget fight scenes for 97 mins
Disadvantages: Not the best storyline, not the best acting

...A classic action movie, mainly focused on hand-to-hand fighting, Jean-Claude Van Damme does as usual a very good job at showing us he knows his martial arts. There is also a quite young Kylie Minogue in the line-up playing an army woman who is friends with Guile (Van Damme) her character was in some of the later street fighter games. The movie itself is based in South- East Asia and is set in 1995. For everyone out there who knows Bison you will know he always has evil plans up his sleeve, however this time he has gone one step further and has taken relief workers from 63 Nations and is threatening to execute them unless his demands are met. His demand is 20 billion dollars. I personally thought it was a bit much but hey i am sure they could've afforded it. Anyway Colonel Guile sets out to stop Bison and rescue the prisoners before it...

vampiresthirst 06.05.2007 (07.05.2007) · Read review
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Review of Street Fighter - The Ultimate Battle (DVD)

FREE DVDs

Advantages: Free trial, large choice, post included,new realeases
Disadvantages: see review

...I like movies and I like freebies, so when you get offered both in one swoop you?re bound to accept! I used my two week free trial with this company and remained with them for a couple of monthsbefore moving on to try many other companies free trials (and winning a new DVD player on Tesco DVD rental site on their free trial offer). I then had an email from DVDs 365 asking me to go back, and offering me a free DVD if I did so. I had just left Tesco (with my new DVD player) so I chose to go back with them. ∆◊◊ THE SERVICE THEY OFFER ∆◊◊ Basically it?s like going to a video shop and hiring films on DVD, except you don?t pay for each film you chose ? rather a monthly fee for which you can watch as many movies as you can fit in, for us this is usually around 8 a month (2 a week usually weekends...

dabmim 15.11.2004 · Read review
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Review of dvds365.com

Van Damme gets bloody in yet another action thriller.

Advantages: Plenty of punching, kicking and shooting.
Disadvantages: Cliched, stale plotline, stiff dialogue and characters.

...Another of the countless Van Damme films to be unleashed upon the public. Naturally its an action thriller starring Van Damme as a 'kickboxing police inspector', interesting premise so far, trying to solve the murder of his twin brother whom he was seperated from at a very young age. Funny how Van Damme plays his own twin in another film but nonethless a fairly typical Van Damme plot, namely Van Damme taking revenge for something, usually a death with plenty of bloodspill on the way there. Of course there's eyecandy also, where would a Van Damme film be without the love interest? Natasha Henstridge is provided as blonde totty for the muscled star. Strangely she was his brother's girlfriend whilst he was living, not at all creepy that she ends up dating her dead boyfriend's brother? Odder still the fact that Van Damme's character...

Rustycakes 17.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Maximum Risk (DVD)

VAN HELSH**

Advantages: Great theme tune and some good action sequences.
Disadvantages: Overuse of CGI, bad writing and a waste of money.

...I went to see Van Helsing the past weekend and I wasn't all that impressed. I mainly went to see the film because it looked good from the trailer and the fact that it was made by the director of one of my favourite films 'The Mummy'. It just shows you how important trailers are nowadays to the movie industry. Even a crap film with a good trailer can do well. For example Charlie Angels: Full Throttle, what a bad film, but it had an excellent trailer with that loud prodigy music blarring. Anyway back to Van Helsing. The movie opened in the U.S with about 50 something million dollars in total and will probably make a lot next week too. Though I'm not sure it will make it's £180 million budget back in America alone. This flick will have to take some hard earned cash from the worldwide box-offce. The Story Basically Van Helsing is...

ralfschumacher 12.05.2004 · Read review
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Review of Van Helsing (DVD)