Advantages: A Van Damme movie that doesn’t insult your intelligence for some of the time....
Disadvantages: A bit too out there for the average Van Damme fan, perhaps?

...Van Damme looks ridiculous standing next to the frankly enormous Dennis Rodman (which might expalin why you don't see the both of them standing next to each other much....). Rodman is surprisingly NOT bad BUT he’s given nothing to do BUT give a few bad insults (they don’t stick), say several more stupid things and act very tongue-in-cheek and strike down the odd nemesis, as he comes across as unexpectedly camp. Rodman’s character isn’t really fully introduced until around the 50 minute mark (there’s snatches of him elsewhere though....) and even then it’s only as he’s about to drive off on his motorcycle and Van Damme stops him just about as he is to roar off. The film has some nice touches BUT believing that Rodman is a weapons dealer-cum-inventor can indeed be a trifle bit too much... Read review

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

...that 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... Read review

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Advantages: good plot and good casting
Disadvantages: stars Van Damme (but least he is good in this film)

...For you people who are familiar with his work you will have probably noticed his emotionless acting and quite a few of his films are very similar. Even at the start they seemed the same (Bloodsport, Kickboxer (I think that's the right name) and later, they just plain dumb. I mean, what was Knock Off all about? But Universal Soldier stands out as his best movie.(not like there was a wide selection.) This movie is different from all other Van Damme movies because 1) It's not all about fighting (sci-fi war), 2) it's not 100% Van Damme, 3) he doesn't have a lot of lines and crappy delivery of those few lines are OK. This is not a fighting movie. That's right, it's not a typo. Yes, there's fighting in it, but it isn't the point of the movie. In this movie, he's not primarily a fighter, he's just a guy that can fight. They could have... Read review

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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... Read review

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Advantages:
Disadvantages:

...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... Read review

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Advantages: Van Damme action
Disadvantages: Lame film

...One of Van Damme's first films and he will be glad that it was. At least he hadn't gotten much of a following at that point. If he had, it would have destroyed his career! The plot is almost non-existent, set in post-apocalyptic future with a disease ravaging the American nation...scientists are close to the cure and Gibson (Van Damme) is en route to help spur them on. The action isn't too bad, but as always in these films you get the whole Van Damme kicking the living hell out of people with ease to come up against a dumb opponent at the end where he nearly loses just to put up a spirited fight back at the end to claim the victory....cliched to the hilt. I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a Van Damme follower who has yet to see this film.... Read review

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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... Read review

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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... Read review

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Advantages: Enjoyable stuff, easy on the brain cells, good action scenes
Disadvantages: Not the best film you're ever likely to see, some duff plot flaws in time-travel logic

...Whilst it has become increasingly easy to laugh at Jean Claude Van Damme's recent spate of terrible, self-absorbed movies, lumping his films in the same category with Steven Segal as mindless action-fests starring non-actors, this assessment is not always fair. This negates the fact that at one time he was a box-office action hero with a decent reputation. Whilst never in the same league as Schwarzanegger, Stallone and Willis, the Muscles from Brussels did endure some success in the early nineties where he worked with some wily action director's (Roland Emmerich, John Woo and Peter Hyams) and where some of his films (Timecop, Nowhere to Run, Sudden Death, Universal Solidier, Kickboxer) were actually well-crafted, fast paced adventures. Indeed Van Damme's more recent straight to video atrocities illustrates the man as a parody of his... Read review

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