Welcome to the film-related musings, complaints, and comments of Zack Clopton, an amateur film-critic, scholar, and screenwriter. Featured here are Director's Report Cards, essays, and other reviews. Enjoy!
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Showing posts with label nu image/millennium films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nu image/millennium films. Show all posts
By 2005, Chuck Norris was too old for this shit. “Walker, Texas Ranger” ended in 2001, after a nine season run that is frankly hard to believe. A mere four years later, there was an attempt to relaunch the show as a series of TV movies that did not get beyond the first installment. Chuck was well into the twilight of his career, doing shit like founding a short-lived fighting league, putting his name on books, and getting ironic cameos in big comedies. This was right before the internet turned him into a meme, signaling that he was truly a jokey relic of the past. The former Lone Wolf would basically retire after that... But not before starring in one more crappy, direct-to-video action movie. The story behind “The Cutter” is interesting but not that interesting. The film spent a decade in development before ending up at Avi Lerner's Nu Image/Millennium Films. One presumes this is how the story of a diamond cutter who survived the Holocaust got transformed into a low budget Chuck Norris vehicle. It would, for many years, be the final starring role for the once Karate Champ.
In the Sinai dessert, an archaeological team uncovers the mythical, bejeweled Breastplate of Aaron. Shortly afterwards, a man lands in a private glider, kills the dig team, and steals the holy relic. Meanwhile, in Spokane, Washington... John Shepherd is a private detective who specializes in finding missing people and rescuing kidnapped individuals. After a botched rescue attempt of a teenage girl results in her death, he feels immense guilt. Through a series of encounters, he makes the acquitance of Elizabeth Teller. She is the granddaughter of Isaac Teller, a Jewish jeweler and Holocaust survivor. While imprisoned in the camps, he was forced by Nazi officers to design a new gemstone cut formation. Now, decades later, the last surviving officer at the camp and his younger associate, the murderer from earlier, captured Isaac and demands he cut the twelve fabled stones of Aaron. Shepherd and his team are on the case.
"The Cutter" is, from most perspectives, a fairly shoddy motion picture. Chuck's "Hero and the Terror" director Bill Tannen came back for this one. While Tannen's career isn't the most prestigious, he was still an industry veteran directing his tenth feature here. Despite that, an aura of cheapness floats over all of "The Cutter." I mean, how many action movies can you think of set in Spokane, Washington? Many scenes seem to take place in unassuming homes, apartments, and buildings. The climatic moment happens in a single room, a generic warehouse setting, while another prominent fight occurs at the back of a city bus. The film features some extremely annoying editing, indicative of the early 2000s, with many sped-up montages in-between scenes set to fast paced music. There are whooshing sound effects, frantic cuts, and shifts between color and black-and-white. It feels like a desperate attempt to make a low budget and unambitious project seem much more trendy and stylish than it otherwise obviously is. The film ends on a literal freeze-frame shot, like the old TV shows it actually has much more in-common with than "2 Fast 2 Furious."
"The Cutter's" low budget cheesiness veers towards unintentional hilarity very quickly. The aged jewels of brilliant color and clarity that the plot revolves around look a lot more like plastic toys. The sound design is amusingly cheap, every firearm making one of two different gunshot sounds. The first proper fight ends with the hysterical sight of a guy launched through a window and doing the Howie Scream, a stock sound effect rendered hilarious by both its instant recognition and tendency to seem out-of-place in any context. Inevitably, you quickly notice that this melee filled shoot-em-up seems to revolve around mostly older people. The title character is a Holocaust survivor who can't be any younger than eighty. (Performed by, of all people, Bernie Kopell.) The secret final boss of the movie is a similarly ancient man, played by actual Holocaust survivor and long tenured character actor Curt Lowens. The leading lady has grey hair but still gets a sexy shower scene, making me wonder if "The Cutter" was specifically made with the AARP crowd in mind.
No old guy is more prominent in "The Cutter" than Chuck Norris, who would've been about sixty-four at the time of filming. His action scenes seem to involve a lot of him mostly standing stationary, punching or shooting at someone right in front of him. The bigger stunts he does do, like jabbing an attacker in the temples or rolling over a stone wall, look awkward. He is often replaced by a stunt double wearing a noticeable wig whenever the story requires him to kick higher than his hip or fall backwards. We aren't quite in Charles Bronson in "Death Wish V" levels of embarrassment here but the disconnect between the star's age and the expectations of the action genre are still unavoidable. Chuck spends a lot of this one sitting down, drinking tea, talking on the phone, or displaying an inexplicable knowledge of Biblical history. A car chase amusingly features him only in quick cuts, clearly not actually behind the wheel of a speeding automobile. The climax, once again, has him disarming a bomb rather than delivering a killing blow. Probably the most unfortunate moment occurs during his trademark shirtless scene, his once taunt and muscled arms looking rather skinny and his famous manly chest now peppered with liver spots.
While "The Cutter" is definitely a Chuck Norris vehicle, in the tradition of many geezer teasers to come, it does feature a younger actor in an equally big role. That would be Daniel Bernhardt, the man you get when your action movie is too shitty for even Jean-Claude Van Damme's lax standards. Bernhardt is the bad guy, a good use of his talents. He gets to put on a variety of different accents, sneers villainously at his opponents, and wears a number of disguises. Including, most incongruously, a kippah. Bernhardt hams it up nicely, enlivening an otherwise listless production. In fact, if you watch a lot of crappy action movies, there are a number of people here you'll recognize. Norris regular Marshall R. Teague is his contact on the police force. Chuck's brother Aaron has a bit part, getting to unexpectedly thrown out some fast punches of his own. Tracy Scoggins has some belligerent sexual tension with Chuck in a few scenes. Former American Gladiator Deron McBee gets karate chopped in the throat. How much value a movie making you say "Hey, I know that guy!" when some mildly recognizable character actor walks on-screen is debatable but it further brightens up "The Cutter."
Another kind of familiar face is Todd Jensen, a regular in movies made by Avi Lerner's Nu Image/Millennium Films slop factory. Lerner's fingerprints are on the film in another way. Having picked up the baton left by Golan and Globus, Lerner is also an Israeli nationalist whose low budget action schlock doubles as white-and-blue propaganda. "The Cutter" is not quite as blatant as "The Delta Force" but, like earlier Nu Image production "The Order," it does take the Exodus myth as historical fact. Having the Breastplate of Aaron be the main MacGuffin and Nazis be the bad guys make me wonder if this was, at one point in its long development history, another "Indiana Jones" rip-off. But Nazis always make good villains, the film's backstory of the Holocaust only seeming odd because it was made and ostensibly set in 2005. This is not a Zionist screed. It's a standard Nu Image, in the other way: Being really cheap and kind of bad. However, watching a senior citizen action star fumble through familiar beats while surrounded by enough funny, intentional or otherwise, moments and one or two Guys I Like doesn't make me regret watching it. [6/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
As a fan of low budget filmmaking – especially when it spotlights new voices or contains a subversive message – I do not believe there is any shame in going "direct-to-video." ("Direct-to-VOD" or "Direct-to-Tubi" being the modern equivalent.) It is a totally valid release strategy for a number of worthwhile movies. However, especially during the Blockbuster Video peak years of the nineties, the bias against films foregoing a theatrical run wasn't entirely unwarranted. Many lazy cash-in sequels, unambitious action flicks, horror films of debatable merit, and exceedingly lame kids movies were released in this manner. You'd think, with a steady TV gig on “Walker, Texas Ranger,” Chuck Norris wouldn't need to do any of that stuff circa 1995. I guess not, as the former karate champ starred in “Forest Warrior,” his first direct-to-video release, around that time. To add to that indignity, this latest collab with his brother Aaron was strictly within the kiddie camp. The resulting film is widely regarded as a low point for a star whose work rarely attracted critical praise in the first place.
Near the Tanglewood forest, a group of children composed of Austene, Justin, Lewis, and brothers Logan and Brian gather around a camp fire. An old man named Clovis relates a local legend to them. The story goes that, back in the frontier days, a man named Jebediah McKenna lived in the woods. His wife, a Native American woman, grew sick and he rushed off to retrieve some medicine for her. This is when he was attacked by bandits in the woods, physically beating them back but still being gravely injured. Rolling into the river and near death, the forest spirits revived McKenna. They gave him the ability to change into animals and made him the ghostly protector of the forest. The kids think its only a story. The next day, the youths discover a fort in the woods and make it their new club house. At the same time, a logging company owned by the greedy Travis Thorne intends to cut the forest down, much to the protest of the locals. It's not long before the loggers and the kids come into conflict. Luckily for the children, the spirit of Jebediah McKenna is there to protect them and defend the forest.
For most of its runtime, “Forest Warrior” is an almost insufferably mawkish presentation. The kids are all wide-eyed moffats, their actions and dialogue calculated for maximum adorableness. They spent much of the movie interacting with a bear cub they name Rags, who seems to rarely share actual screen-time with the child actors. Every facet of their lives and existence seem tied to this forest and their club house. Only Austene's life gets any additional depth. She has an often absent, usually intoxicated father. This subplot crops up for a few scene, an attempt to add even more syrupy emotion to the story, before the business in the woods is returned to. The villains are all two-dimensional bad guys, cartoonishly dumb and wicked who never pause at the thought of attacking or blowing up kids. Travis Thorne makes sure to announce that he doesn't intend to hire locals for his mill, because he cares so little about the near-by town. The bone-deep corniness of this writing peaks during the climatic montage of the youths sabotaging the baddies' vehicles, sticking potatoes in their tail pipes and boards with nails under their tires.
That hokey quality penetrates into every aspect of “Forest Warrior.” The musical score by Bill Elliot is composed of a few melodies that are repeated throughout. Every time the villains or the mill are introduced, a thumping Dr. Robotnik-esque theme plays. Every time Chuck kicks into action, a hard rock theme picks up for a few minutes. Most of Elliot's prior credits are Disney Channel Originals, which is what this music sounds made for. The film is often broken up by reaction shots of various animals or repetitive montages of the inner workings of the mill, all evident attempts to pad the run time out. The writing is preachy and awkward, with the opening prologue going on for ten whole minutes. The lameness of the film seems to suck down the talent of everyone involved. João Fernandes has long since proven himself a talented cinematographer, doing good and sometimes great work on past Chuck Norris gigs. However, even his skills seem half-hearted here, “Forest Warrior” often looking flat in its imagery with blanket lighting.
That is what ninety percent of the experience of watching “Forest Warrior” is like, overly cutesy kids movie antics supported by writing and production values that can best be described as workmanlike and worst as tedious. The remaining ten percent, however, is composed of moments so preposterous, that they can't help but be amusing. This largely means the action scenes. A red tail hawk swoops towards some logging company stooges only to turn into Chuck Norris delivering a flying kick. The film then immediately launches into a fast-paced action sequence, scored to that corny rock riff, and suddenly feels injected with caffeine. Other highlights include Chuck stopping a chainsaw blade with his bare hand and turning into bear via some underwhelming digital matting. He also grabs a bad guy and stares intensely into his eyes, until the film inverts, in what I can only compare to Ghost Rider's Penance Stare. The only non-Chuck related moment of goofy awesomeness in “Forest Warrior” is when an extremely underwhelming rock song on the soundtracks prompts all the lumberjacks to play their tools of deforestation like instruments. The fight scenes aren't great or anything. As in “Top Dog,” we are thoroughly in the era where Chuck's kicks, spins, and leaps mostly seem to be shot in long shots, close-ups on feet or fists, or with his back otherwise turned to the camera. However, these brief flashes of absurd actions still represent the few times “Forest Warrior” awakens from its sleepy, listless ambiance.
There's only one other mildly interesting thing about “Forest Warrior.” Much like “Top Dog,” the film represents a now bygone time when even right-wing types like Chuck Norris could agree with the libs on certain topics. After fighting racists and Nazis, Chuck is now here to defend the environment. It's a natural extension of the star's ongoing Native American mysticism gag, which “Forest Warrior” is unsurprisingly heavy on. He's protecting the woods and animals here, like some kind of gosh darn tree-huggin' hippy. He goes so far as to theatrically snap a rifle in half, something I think would get you ex-communicated from the Republican party in 2026. Not that “Forest Warrior's” environmental message is especially well thought-out. When your loggers are cartoonishly evil buffoons, it doesn't leave room for any genuine insight. I think “FernGully” is a deeper reflection on the deforestation issue. Still, the film does represents a more innocent time. When macho ass-kickers were also rugged, salt-of-the-earth, cowboy, forest hermit types that acknowledged you shouldn't cut down every tree or slaughter every animal, before internet con-men completely took over that corner of the American psyche.
Not that Chuck seems all that invested in “Forest Warrior.” For much of the film, he looms in the distance, watching over the children and trees, like some sort of fur-wearing, high-kicking Jesus. When called upon to speak any dialogue, Chuck's delivery is of a stiffness not seen since the “Way of the Dragon” days. A random moment when he teaches a kid how to kick someone in the head represents the sole time he has any spark in his eyes here. Maybe he did this one as a favor to Aaron? There are some notable names in the cast. Roscoe Lee Brown is the storytelling old man, his sagacious voice managing to make this stupid bullshit sound half-way believable. Terry Kiser plays the main villain, mugging and hamming up to such a degree as to make his performance in “Friday the 13th Part VII” seem subtle in comparison. Michael Beck is the main kid's alcoholic dad, Loretta Swit shows up as someone's mom, George Buck Flower is briefly here. It all suggest that “Forest Warrior” had enough money behind it to not look and feel so drab and boring for most of its runtime.
The film was produced by Avi Lerner, the Israeli-born and South African-based producer who got his start with Cannon before launching his own production company, Nu Image/Millennium Films. Lerner and his company would basically keep making the kind of action schlock that Cannon had success with into the nineties and 2000s, on considerably lower budgets and without much of the flair. “Forest Warrior” doesn't feature the Nu Image logo, being filmed in Oregon rather than overseas, but it still feels a lot like that kind of production. Presumably, Chuck's commitments to “Walker, Texas Ranger” is what kept him from making more shit for those guys. You can cut together about five minutes of amusing moments from “Forest Warrior” but, as a feature length motion picture, it's difficult to recommend. I won't say yet if this is the nadir of Norris' career, as we've still got some dire looking shit to wade through, but it is a fairly steep fall-off from the heights of his eighties cult classics. [5/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5] [X] Facial Hair [] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall [X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face [] Shows Off His Hairy Chest [X] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
Within the world of comic book, Mike Mignola's “Hellboy” comics are beloved for their highly stylized, heavily shadowed artwork and pulp influenced writing. Comics remain an insular world, Mignola's “Hellboy” stories belonging to an even more niche circle of characters outside the iconic worlds of DC Comics and Marvel Comics. When Guillermo del Toro adapted the books into two films in the 2000s, the character and his world became much more of a beloved cult classic. However, while the del Toro “Hellboy” films are adored among a certain audience, neither were massive blockbusters on the scale of “The Dark Knight” or “Spider-Man.” Del Toro, Ron Perlman, and the fan wanted a conclusion to this trilogy... But studios were indifferent. Moreover, it seemed Mignola and del Toro had a falling out of sorts. This began a long journey to make another “Hellboy” movie but not del Toro's “Hellboy III.”
The motion picture that eventually emerged from this development was Neil Marshell's 2019 “Hellboy” reboot, starring David Harbour. And nobody liked it. Critics absolutely slammed it, the box office receipts were not stellar, and nearly every review expressed much more interest in seeing a third film with Ron Perlman over this. Only four years passed before rights-holder Millennium Media – still best known, in my mind anyway, for “The Expendables” movies and action movies of much lesser prestige – announced another reboot. An actor nobody had heard of was cast as Hellboy. Brian Taylor, ostensibly the more respected half of the Neveldine/Taylor duo that still hadn't made a movie in seven years, was hired to direct. Filming took place in Bulgaria, where Millennium Media shoots a lot of low budget schlock. Early reports repeatedly emphasized that this was going to be a grittier, more horror-centric take on the character. The exact same promise that was made about the previous reboot.
In other words, every piece of news that came out about this new “Hellboy” reeked of cheapness and desperation, of some producers trying to squeeze a little more blood out of this brimstone. That impression wasn't dismissed once images, posters, and trailers started to crop up, each one making the film look more like it was designed for television than theaters. The idea that “Hellboy: The Crooked Man” – as the reboot was entitled – was the cheap, cash-in, straight-to-video “Hellboy” movie occurred to many. That prophecy was fulfilled when the negative buzz around the film had distributors pulling “The Crooked Man” from theaters a few weeks before it was scheduled to come out and instead sent it to video-on-demand. Now that the movies has been out a while, the few people who have watched it seem to like it even less than the previous reboot. As a fan of Mignola and sometimes Taylor's work, it's time for me to weigh in on whether this new “Hellboy” is worthwhile.
Perhaps to further distinguish itself from previous “Hellboy” movies, “The Crooked Man” is set in 1959. Hellboy, that half-human and half-defender paranormal investigator for the B.P.R.D., is travelling via train through the Appalachian Mountains. His companion is Bobbie Jo Song, a new B.P.R.D. Agent eager to get out into the field. The strong evil presence in the valley causes their cargo – an accursed, giant spider – to go berserk. Hellboy and Song crash out of the train car and find themselves in the poor communities of the area. They soon come across a bewitched young man. This leads them on a quest into the local witchcraft community. Teaming up with a young soldier named Tom Ferrell, they cross a witch named Effie Kolb and a demonic entity known as the Crooked Man.
The “Hellboy” comics are definitely darker than the most well known cinematic adaptations of the character. Mignola's work draws extensively from world mythology, usually pulling threats and plot points from obscure folklore from all over. By making its setting in Appalachia – a corner of the globe I have some familiarity with – “The Crooked Man” explores concepts from folk magik. Witch balls are plot points, the ingredients to make one explained in one scene. We see a witch crawl into her abandoned skin, not unlike the Boo Hag of Carolina lore. Mason jars full of creepy bugs, zombies in abandoned church yards, and underground tunnels full of hostile spirits all put in appearances. In other words, “Hellboy: The Crooked Man” falls soundly into the subgenre we now know as folk horror, a premise Mignola's work has always been in discussion with.
Another question is more pressing though. Does “The Crooked Man” successfully move the “Hellboy” film series into horror? Del Toro's film were more on the side of dark fantasy, while the previous reboot leaned on edgy, metal album cover imagery. “The Crooked Man” is certainly attempting to created scares. Ominous figures emerge from the darkness. As you'd expect, the titular villain is depicted as a creaking, cackling corpse. A notable sequence has Hellboy doing battle with a horde of zombies in a spooky church. The reboot has some visceral imagery up its sleeve, such as a cackling witch ascending up into the treetops, crows pecking someone's eyes out, or a snake emerging from, well, a very sensitive part of someone's anatomy. The atmosphere is more on the foreboding side here, invoking something closer to a seventies Hammer movie than a comic book blockbuster. The make-up effects used to bring the ghouls and creeps to life are, it must be said, decent too.
Not that any of it is scary. I mean, most horror movies aren't. That the protagonist of this movie is a nearly indestructible demon child goes a long way towards draining any thrills. It's hard to build tension when you know that your hero won't be seriously hurt. At one point, Hellboy shrugs off getting run through with some iron fence posts. Moreover, Taylor and his team can't inject any of these scenarios, no matter how transgressive they might be, with any sort of dread or foreboding. Sequences, such as Hellboy being tossed through the air or the evil forces closing in on the heroes, are too flatly presented to generate much thrills. It certainly doesn't help that, in general, “Hellboy: The Crooked Man” is too fucking dark. I mean that literally. Like far too many movies this day, it's seriously underlit and a number of scenes are hard to follow on account of being so badly illuminated. Maybe this was an attempt to replicate Mignola's black ink heavy artwork but it backfires.
Since the Neveldine/Taylor partnership has been dissolved for a while now, both having made several movies as solo acts now, a few things have become clear. First off, the over-the-top and willfully offensive comedy that energized the “Crank” films seems to have mostly come from Neveldine's side of the collaboration. Brian Taylor, meanwhile, seems to be the one largely responsible for the distinctive, feet-on-the-ground visual approach of those movies. You can see a little bit of that in “The Crooked Man.” The opening titles occur suddenly on-screen, over some shots of the foggy, desolate landscapes. Bulgaria isn't not a perfect one-to-one duplicate of Appalachia but, if nothing else, it does provide a distinctive ambiance all its own. Moreover, you can see some of the frenetic camera work and editing here. Only in a few scenes and the film could stand to be a lot more distinctive.
Unfortunately, it's very clear why “The Crooked Man” is both so darkly lit and so visually underwhelming. Wikipedia lists the film as having a 20 million dollar budget which is, in the scope of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking, a pittance. This is reflected in the limited settings for the film. A large portion of “The Crooked Man” takes place in that spooky church, underground tunnels, nondescript cabins, or a – admittedly decent looking – dilapidated mansion. Mostly interior sets that could be cheaply assembled. The action scenes are modest, with little of the computer generated flash and bang we expect from a superhero flick. This is probably a good thing, as the CGI that is in the film is... Underwhelming. The opening scuffle Hellboy has with a giant spider is not the most convincing, the enormous arachnid rarely seeming to occupy the same plain of existence as the red-skinned hero. A large snake that shows up later looks faker. The more of “The Crooked Man” I watched, the more I began to suspect that the reboot emphasized the horror angle of the material because it was a lot cheaper to bring to life than elaborate action scenes.
A clear lack of funds and an inability to generate much thrills from its assortment of horrors is not the only thing keeping this “Hellboy” from being better. An actor named Jack Kesy dons the blunted horns and Right Hand of Doom, who seems mostly known for television and supporting roles in bigger movies. Kesy, admittedly, does an okay job of embodying the blue collar sensibilities of Hellboy as a character. He groans the character's catchphrase of “Ah crap” with the right level of designation. If nothing else, Kesy is an improvement over David Harbour's petulant, angsty teenage boy take on the character in the previous reboot.. However, Kesy still stands in the shadow of Ron Perlman's pitch perfect Hellboy. In fact, from the inflection of his voice to his burly body language, Kesy seems to be directly emulating Perlman. “The Crooked Man” was doomed to remind viewers of better, earlier movies but a star who can't make the protagonist his own makes that all that more glaring.
Ultimately, “The Crooked Man's” plot seems a bit unfocused and meandering at times too. The script does not do a great job of tying its various subplots together. This is very clear in the detours it makes towards explaining Hellboy's origins. Throughout the film, the demonic hero is haunted by visions of his witch mother, who underwent a horrible sacrifice to bring him into his world. If Kesy is decent when grumbling as Hellboy in the face of danger, his performance flounders into melodramatics when trying to wring pathos out of the material. In fact, the scenes devoted to this subplot drag horribly. There's a thematic thread in “The Crooked Man” about sin and guilt, which these moments are obviously playing off of, but the film struggles to make us care about them.
Previous “Hellboy” movies also built up a lovable supporting cast, from lovesick fishman Abe Sapian to pyrokinetic Liz Sherman. Much like the previous reboot, “The Crooked Man” lacks both of these characters. The cast members it introduces to compensate simply aren't as compelling. Adeline Rudolph makes for a decent enough foil for Kesy's Hellboy to bounce off of. However, the script's attempts to build some pathos around her backstory – done via another awkward flashback – is never convincing. In fact, all the new characters would probably be a lot more interesting if the film didn't devote so much time to setting up their origins. Jefferson White as Tom Ferrell and Joseph Marcell as the blind Reverend aren't giving bad performances. The script simply mistakes exposition for development. The further into “The Crooked Man” we got, the more I was forced to conclude that I simply wasn't that invested in any of these characters.
I can certainly understand why so many people are deriding “The Crooked Man” so much. The film can't defeat the impression that it was quickly and cheaply rushed into production before an option or something expired. Trying to move “Hellboy” more into a horror direction isn't a bad idea. At times, when focused on its hero smacking zombies away, it actually almost works. In a more forgiving film, I could even see Kesy's take on Hellboy growing on me. However, much like the Marshall/Harbour reboot, “Hellboy: The Crooked Man” simply can't overcome a seemingly insurmountable expectations: I'd rather by watching del Toro's “Hellboy III.” Mignola co-wrote this script and it's probably more faithful to the source material than previous adaptations. It also can't recaptured the unique charm of the earlier, better movies. It is less obnoxious than the other “Hellboy” though. I'll give it that much but falls to much the same failings, in that it stands unimpressively in the shadows of the Hellboys that came before. [Grade: C]
You can't talk about the history of horror without giving Curt Siodmak a mention. Siodmak wrote “The Wolfman,” inventing most of the common werewolf tropes in the process. He would go on to write many other Universal Monsters movies. Siodmak's credits also include other classics like “I Walked with a Zombie,” “The Beast with Five Fingers,” and “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.” Yet one of Siodmak's biggest successes would be a novel. “Donovan's Brain” would be a best seller in the forties. It would be adapted to radio and then to film three separate times. (In addition to inspiring the entire “killer brain” sub-genre.) The best known of these adaptations, from 1953, is the only one to use Siodmak's original title.
Dr. Patrick Cory is an experimental brain surgeon. His greatest goal is to keep a brain alive once it's been removed from the body. He's obsessed with his work, worrying his wife Janice and his alcoholic friend Frank. He gets a rare opportunity when millionaire Warren Donovan's plane crashes near their home. Patrick places Donovan's brain inside his experimental tank, keeping it alive. Soon afterwards, the doctor begins to exhibit many of Donovan's characteristic, a hard and hateful man. Donovan takes over Cory from beyond the grave, hoping to settle his affairs and unnaturally extend his life.
“Donovan's Brain” has some scary ideas floating around inside it. Siodmak puts a sci-fi twist on the classical possession idea, of someone loosing their free will to an outside force. The story also flirts with the idea of friends and family feeling powerless as they watch a loved one change. However, the movie doesn't sell these ideas in especially effective ways. First off, Dr. Cory is kind of a jerk to begin with. When Donovan begins to influence him, he just becomes another flavor of asshole. Donovan also isn't the scariest sci-fi villain imaginable. Donovan returns from the grave... So he can commit tax fraud. It's very late into the film that the evil brain actually commits murder and, even then, he never uses Dr. Cory to do so.
Felix E. Feist, previously of “Deluge,” directs a decent cast. Lew Ayres stars as Cory. Ayres does a good job of essentially playing two characters in the same body. Just through his body language, which includes affecting a limp, Ayres does a good job of informing the audience when Donovan has taken over his body. “Donovan's Brain” also co-stars Nancy Davis, who is definitely better known as Nancy Reagan. As the woman endangered by the wicked brain, the future First Lady projects a likable vulnerability. (I also like the love she shows for a monkey in the first scene.) Gene Evans is also decent as Frank. Despite the character being a drunk, he has an honorable side too, which Evans is good at playing.
As I said, “Donovan's Brain” is fairly underwhelming as a horror movie. While what the callous billionaire's brain does is potentially unnerving, the film never approaches it as especially sinister. As it moves towards its last act, “Donovan's Brain” begins to feel a bit more like a monster movie. A blackmailing reporter is killed and Cory, under Donovan's control, becomes more violent. However, the movie cops out with a super lame ending. I figured the thunder storm that begins in the last act was just there to provide some spooky atmosphere. Instead, the bad weather provides the deus ex machina that brings the villain's reign of terror to an end. This bullshit ending, notably, is not present in Siodmak's original novel.
As I said, this is but one of three adaptations of Siodmak's novel to reach theater screens. The book was first adapted in 1944 as “The Lady and the Monster,” starring Erich von Stroheim. A mere nine years after this film, the story would be adapted again as “The Brain,” this time by director Freddie Francis. It's also notable that, two years before his novel was released, Siodmak wrote “Black Friday,” a film similarly about brain transplant and a Jekyll and Hyde-esque possession. Despite it's reputation as a classic, I was a bit underwhelmed by “Donovan's Brain.” I guess that happens some time. [5/10]
Following the success of 2003's “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” studios became hungry to remake any moderately well known horror movie from the seventies or eighties. While most of these projects were deeply unnecessary affairs, a few had some merit. I enjoy the original “It's Alive” a lot but the premise could definitely prosper from an update. So when a new version of Larry Cohen's cult classic was announced, I didn't immediately dismiss it. Cohen was even credited with working on the screenplay! However, the project went into development hell for years. By the time the new “It's Alive” was actually released, the remake cycle had burned itself out. The film ended up being crapped out onto the straight-to-DVD market. This, along with an awful trailer, did not get my hopes up.
The remake makes many changes to the premise. Frank and Lenore Davis are now much younger, with Lenore still being a college student. Only six months into her pregnancy, she goes into labor. In the hospital, she's told the infant has doubled in size since the last ultrasound. In the delivery room, all the doctors are gorily killed. Lenore and the baby, who is named Daniel, are fine though. In the months that follow, Daniel appears to be perfectly healthy and normal. However, Lenore soon becomes aware that Daniel occasionally changes into a hideous monster that can tear people apart. She hides this information from her husband and his paraplegic brother but soon the bodies start to pile up.
By changing the plot of “It's Alive” so much, the subtext behind the story is largely changed as well. The original's paranoia surrounding pollution, pharmaceuticals, and government agencies are totally excised. In fact, the reason why the Davis baby becomes a monster is never clarified in the remake. By refocusing the story on Lenore, and making the baby a less obvious mutant, “It's Alive” becomes about something very different. Now this is a film about a young woman uncertain about the responsibilities of motherhood. Lenore considered aborting the baby, right from the beginning. Though baby Daniel continues to kill, Lenore still loves and watches out for him. However, her behavior – morose, resigned, obsessive, isolated from her clueless husband – recalls postpartum depression.
This new approach could've provided a fresh take on the original. Sadly, 2008's “It's Alive” is an utterly laughable horror movie. Director Josef Rusnak, previously of “The Thirteenth Floor,” makes the odd decision to keep baby Daniel almost entirely off-screen. We usually only see the carnage the infant reaps. Which is ridiculous, by the way. This mutant baby is not an ambush killer, like the original. Instead, it tosses doctors into the air, tears holes in bodies, and gorily dismembers people in outrageous ways. As if these scenes weren't laughable enough, the new “It's Alive” tosses some truly shitty CGI in near the end. These ludicrous effects are often punctuated by an obnoxiously loud soundtrack. Bernard Hermman, this ain't.
Adding to the remake's litany of problems is a truly underwhelming cast. A very squeaky Bijou Philips stars as Lenore. Philips has shown herself to be a capable actress in the past. Here, however, she seems more indecisive than anything else. Her performance veers from hysterics to blank. Philips is, at least, better than James Murray as Frank. Murray's interpretation of Murray is epically clueless. The character spends the entire movie utterly aware of anything strange happening at all. Murray's performance is corresponding bland. Many of the supporting characters – Lenore's best friend from school, her stoner boyfriend, the asshole cops – are obnoxiously broad and exist just to add to the body count.
From the opening minutes of 2008's “It's Alive,” as soon as I saw the Millennium Releasing logo, I knew I was in trouble That logo rarely proceeds anything of quality. Weirdly, the remake was also produced by the modern iteration of Amicus. Sadly, I don't think this film honored Amicus' legacy of classy British horror flicks. The straight-to-video market is, sadly, exactly where the remake of “It's Alive” belongs. Nobody was more dismissive of the film than Larry Cohen. In a 2009 interview, he said “I would advise anybody who likes my film to cross the street and avoid seeing the new enchilada.” An astute statement. Despite some clever ideas, 2008's “It's Alive” is wretched. [3/10]
In its third episode, the American “Darkstalkers” cartoon presents its interpretation of Anakaris, the game's mummy character. A proud warrior obsessed with restoring his empire in the game, Anakaris is re-characterized here as senile and completely incompetent. The plot concerns a powerful relic from Anakaris' days as Pharaoh, which Pyron hopes to steal. This magical jewel was stolen by Atlantians, the ancestors of merman Rikuo. (Anakaris and Rikou are both voiced by Scott McNeil, which is very obvious.) Morrigan tricks Rikou into revealing the jewel by disusing herself as a fish lady. Harry and Felicia end up in Egypt as Harry's mom – a tabloid reporter – is sent to investigate on Anakaris' pyramid floating around the Cairo.
In its third episode, “Darkstalkers” mostly gives up on action. This is a good idea, as the action scenes are still incompetent. (At least some of Anakaris' special moves are maintained.) Instead, the focus turns to exceedingly bizarre humor. Most of these jokes are awful. Anakaris spouting nonsensical phrase and Rikuo becoming obsessed with the fake fish woman are insulting. The scene where Demitri and Morrigan are chased off by house cats is embarrassing. Tossed-off lines about Elvis and Rikuo being curiously attractive are baffling. One joke made me laugh, when Rikuo randomly makes some dolphin noises. Also, having Anakaris mistakes Felicia for cat goddess Bast was mildly clever. The animation remains atrocious, the characters bending into abstract shapes near the episode's end. As awful as this show remains, this episode's bizarre humor makes it a little more interesting than the previous two. [4/10]
With episode three, “Forever Knight” finally branches out to tell new stories. Toronto is being stalked by a new serial killer. The murderer targets woman, extensively mutilating their bodies. Soon, a Catholic priest named Rochefort receives confessional from the killer, that old spiel about wanting to purge the world from sinners. Nick and Schanke press the priest to reveal the murderer's identity but he's reluctant to do so. A phone sex operator manages to escape the killer but he continues to pursue her. Meanwhile, Nick reflects back on the time he met Joan of Arc, who refused his invitation over to the dark side.
The main plot of “For I Have Sinned” is not that interesting. The killer's identity ends up being a total question mark However, the episode continues to give us more insight into these characters and their world. Dealing with a case so heavily involved in Catholicism forces Nick to constantly look at crosses, which still repel him. (He's also experimenting with garlic tablets.) This leads to a funny scene where he's forced to hide in a confessional booth during the daytime. He needs up hearing Schanke's confession, the partner talking about nearly being bitten by another vamp. That's a funny scene. The Joan of Arc flashbacks show Nick's beliefs in his own vampirism being challenged very early into his undead life. We also get a little more insight into Nick's relationship with Janette, an old friend of his who now runs the vampire club. Overall, it's a fun episode. [7/10]
When determining which films to cover for my second Jean-Claude Van Damme marathon, I had plenty of options. The guy did a bunch of movies during his direct-to-video years, most of them undistinguished from each other. Even big fans have little to say about the likes of “Second-in-Command” or “The Hard Corps.” I first dismissed “Until Death” as another easily skipped film, due to its generic title and equally unremarkable DVD cover art. Digging a little deeper revealed that this one is better regarded than most. Reliable sources said Van Damme gave a good performance and that the film was more than just a direct-to-video action fest. Well, gee whiz, sounds like “Until Death” is worth checking out after all.
Anthony Stowe is a scumbag. He's a police detective in the New Orleans French quarter but is as dirty as can be. Stowe is a heroine addict. He takes bribes from the mob. He has rough sex with prostitutes when he's supposed to be on a date with his wife. Upon discovering his wife is pregnant with another man's child, Anthony melts down entirely. A mob deal with an ex-cop goes bad and Stowe ends up with a bullet in his brain. He survives but is plunged into a coma. Six months later, he wakes up. Given a second chance at life, Stowe attempts to put his past behind him and reconnect with those he hurt. However, his criminal activities will catch up with him eventually.
Despite the stock title and cover art, “Until Death” is another low-key Van Damme movie. The film is, essentially, a cross between a domestic drama and the action-filled crime picture you'd expect. The middle section, after Anthony awakens from his coma, is devoted to his relationship with his wife. There's zero kicking, fighting, or shooting during this portion of the film. If you started watching the movie half-way through, you would probably have no idea this is an action flick. However, the gun fights and violence do return eventually. (Van Damme still doesn't kick anyone though.) Surprisingly, director Simon Fellows does a good job of balancing these two tones. “Until Death's” two halves are quite different but both work well.
For hardcore Jean-Claude Van Damme fans, “Until Death” is a must-see. The film allows the martial arts star to really stretch his acting muscles. For roughly the first fifty minutes, Van Damme gets to play a utterly corrupt, miserable anti-hero. The star has spoken frankly about his drug addiction. In “Until Death,” he portrays a drug addict. Van Damme carries that haggard, strung-out look on his face perfectly. Probably because he saw it in the mirror when he woke up every morning during his wildest years. Stowe is a total burn-out most of the time. Occasionally, a nihilistic anger rise out of him, resulting in violence and beatings. He's a nasty, nasty character.
After taking a bullet to the brain, Stowe awakens as a new man. This change shows the diversity of Van Damme's acting skills. He's just as believable as a man recovering from a coma as he is as an unrepentant junkie. Van Damme peppers his performance with twitches, slow speech, and an uncomfortable body language, mirroring someone still adapting to moving again. It's a surprisingly nuanced bit of acting. The latter part of “Until Death,” devoted to Stowe befriending a young kid and trying to reconnect with his wife, are unexpectedly touching. Van Damme has solid chemistry with Selina Giles, the actress who portrays his wife. You can feel the tension between the two. The chance that they might work things out is oddly compelling. Inserting a low-key familial drama into the middle of a shoot-out filled action movie probably seemed like a weird idea. In practice, it works pretty well.
“Until Death” is still an action movie. Simon Fellows' direction is actually pretty cool. He utilizes smooth pans around rooms, usually spinning the camera upside down. This nicely replicates the distorted frame of the mind of the main character. Fellows' approach is calmer during the domestic sequences, which makes sense. By the end, when the violence resumes, the more active camera movement returns. There's little in the way of kicking and punching in “Until Death.” The focus is on gun fights. This works well though, as the squibs are big and colorful and the audience feels the impact of the shots. I don't even mind the occasional CGI Fellows sneaks in, as he usually uses it for a surreal or disorientating effect.
“Until Death” doesn't exactly give you what you expect. However, sometimes something different is good. I admire the filmmakers for attempting to sneak a tricky personal drama into a direct-to-video Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. The star does indeed give an excellent performance. The visual presentation is better than usual. The emotions are never exactly powerful but the movie gives it a shot. And did I mention Stephen Rea plays the hammy crime boss? “Until Death” is better than “In Hell,” “Legionnaire,” and “Wake of Death,” all of which similarly attempted to be equal parts drama and action films. Don't get your expectations up too high but this movie is still way better than it has any right to be. [7/10]
[THE VAN DAMMAGE: 1 outta 5] [] An Entire Fight, Sans Shirt [X] Close-Up Screaming [] Dancing [] Jump-Kicks A Guy, Through Something [] Performs Either a Split or a Spinning Roundhouse Kick
The first time I had heard of “In Hell” – and, honestly, one of the last times I heard of “In Hell” – was a commercial for a television screening of the film on the USA Network. I didn't think it was odd, at the time, that a new Jean-Claude Van Damme movie would go straight-to-television. This says a lot about where Van Damme's career was in 2003. The once popular and successful Muscle from Brussels was strictly a B-list talent by that point. In 2017, I was actually kind of excited to finally watch “In Hell.” Jean-Claude and Ringo Lam's previous collaborations resulted in the surprisingly entertaining “Maximum Risk” and “Replicant.” Their third, and final, film together is a very different beast but still worth checking out.
Kyle LeBlanc is working overseas in Russia, living happily with his wife. While coming home from work, his wife is murdered by an intruder. After the man gets off on a technicality, LeBlanc shoots the murderer to death in the courtroom. Kyle is given a harsh sentence in a Russian prison. The conditions are hellish, rape and murder commonplace among the inmates. In particular, the wardens delight in forcing the prisoners to fight to the death. Kyle gives up hope at first but soon rediscovers the will to survive, participating in the fights. Even this solution is not as simple as it appears.
As he has done occasionally, “In Hell” seems designed to subvert your expectations for a Jean-Claude Van Damme hero. After discovering his wife's attacker, we get a pretty cool chase through the city streets, with some traditional kicking and diving. However, after Kyle arrives at a prison, the movie becomes a very different creature. Van Damme attempts to kill himself, first by hanging and then by bashing his head against the wall. Jean-Claude's hero spends most of the movie in a stupor, terminally depressed. When he regains the will to live, it's survival for its own sake, without love or compassion for other people. During the fight scenes, Van Damme deploys few of his trademark kicks. By the final act, LeBlanc has had a philosophical change of heart and refuses to fight. All of this is fairly at odds with the usual kind of Van Dammage we've come to expect.
Lam's previous team-ups with Van Damme were fairly serious affairs but distinguished by bursts of quirky humor. “In Hell” does have some eccentricities but is mostly a very grim film. The prison setting is made as gritty as possible. Van Damme's cellmate, a large black man, makes a habit of smothering other prisoners to death with his bare hands. Later, the same character sets a guy in a wheel chair on fire, with much attention paid to the burning man's agonized death. An early scene shows a guard selling an attractive new inmate to another man, who then brutally rapes him. The isolation chamber, where LeBlanc spends part of the film, is also where the prison's sewage system drains. So, yes, “In Hell” features its share of poo. Lam roughly follows the beats of the prison genre. The sadistic wardens and inevitable riots both appear. But this is a far rougher film than “Death Warrant.”
Befitting that darker tone, the fight scenes in “In Hell” are brutal and unforgiving. Van Damme gets his ass kicked several times, even being beaten with a shovel. After he grows a beard and starts training, LeBlanc becomes a vicious fighter. The punches result in bloodied faces. The throws produce shattered limbs. After getting his crotch slammed into a sign, LeBlanc bites a huge chunk out of a man's neck. The towering Micheal Bailey Smith appears as another prisoner, brought in specifically to fight Van Damme, who is even more brutal in dispatching his foes. “In Hell” is not a “fun” action film, the violence designed to be impactful and heavy.
Despite the commitment to realism, Ringo Lam can't help but sneak some odd touches into the film. Some of these work better than others. Van Damme's dead wife is represented by moths, one of which seemingly communicate with him throughout the film. Later, the moth turns into a ghost-like, fully interactive hallucination of his wife. Which is unexpected, at the very least. Contained within the prison is a giant, masked, deformed mongoloid who fights like a vicious animal. Van Damme ends up making friends with this killer. This stuff is quirky and likable. Other stylistic touches are distracting. Such as the techno music that plays during several fight scenes. Or the mostly unneeded voice-over, from Van Damme's cellmate, which feature heavy-handed ruminations on the nature of humankind.
I didn't like “In Hell” as much as “Maximum Risk” or “Replicant.” It's not meant to be enjoyed on that level, going for something more serious and thoughtful. You have to be in a particular mood to appreciate something this dour. However, it is an interesting film. Van Damme gives a good performance. The action is impressively brutal. Lam brings some unique touches to the story. The idea of a “Midnight Express”-style prison drama starring Jean-Claude Van Damme probably could have turned out much worst, at the very least. [7/10]
[THE VAN DAMMAGE: 1 outta 5] [] An Entire Fight, Sans Shirt [X] Close-Up Screaming [] Dancing [] Jump-Kicks A Guy, Through Something [] Performs Either a Split or a Spinning Roundhouse Kick
As I mentioned at the start of this marathon, I've been a guest on the delightfully specific Jean-Pod Van Damme podcast a few times. That show's host, Marcus, is a Van Damme enthusiast and expert. He probably has something good to say about every one of the star's features... Except “Derailed.” He considers “Derailed” the absolute low-point of Van Damme's career and, by far, his worst film. Going into “Derailed,” I was wondering if the film really could be that bad. I was not misled. “Derailed” is easily the worst movie Jean-Claude Van Damme has ever starred in. It might be one of the worst movies I've ever seen, period.
“Derailed's” plot doesn't make much sense but I'll try and untangle it the best I can. Galina Konstantin is a circus performer turned international thief. She has stolen a vile of biological weapons from the Slovakian government. Jacques Kristoff, an intentional agent of some sort, is sent to capture Konstantin. Once he grabs her, the two are sent home, via train. A group of terrorists board the train, with the intention of stealing the bio-weapon for their own means. That sounds simple enough, being yet another variation on the “Die Hard” formula. “Derailed” complicates matters but releasing some of the contagion, infecting the passengers with small pox. There's something about the government planning to bomb the train, one of Jacques' partners being aligned with the terrorists, and other bullshit added to an overcrowded stew.
When it comes to low budget action movies, I keep my expectations measured. At the very least, the action scenes should be easy to follow. “Derailed” does not accomplish this seemingly simple goal. In fact, the action is utterly incompetent in its construction and execution. In several scenes, the fights are so frenziedly edited that you can barely understand what's happening. At one point, Van Damme is wrestling with a bad guy in a hallway, the position of the characters moving suddenly from shot to shot. Another scene, hampered by some truly atrocious green screen effects, has our hero riding a motorcycle over the train... At apparently the same speed as somebody standing on the opposite side of the car? Another moment, before Van Damme performs a spinning body-slam, jerks forward in time without explanation. This is Jean-Claude Van Damme we're working with, a man who knows how to perform impressive action. “Derailed” is so chopped and scattered that his work becomes impossible to appreciate.
“Derailed” isn't just incoherent directed but also deeply tacky. Director Bob Misiorowski was a regular of Nu Image/Millennium Pictures' productions, with his most notable previous credit being “Shark Attack.” His attempts to spruce up “Derailed” are misguided. Misiorowski employs slow motion for the most random bullshit. Van Damme seemingly poking an enemy into slumber is emphasized with slow-mo. One scene is portrayed in split-screen. There's no point to this, as putting two chaotic fight scenes next to each makes both hard to follow. Another sequence features still images flashing on-screen, while Van Damme dangles from the train. Other scenes are highlighted by image blurring. Did I mention the Howie Scream also puts in a pointless appearance? When “Derailed” isn't using garish tricks like this, he indulges in some truly godawful CGI. An early car crash blossoms into a ridiculously overdone explosion. Later, two CGI trains crash into each other in a way that makes zero sense. Its baffling in its badness.
It's clear that Jean-Claude Van Damme isn't especially proud of “Derailed.” Throughout the film, his expressions vary between bored and irritated. In another blatant attempt to emulate “Die Hard,” Jacques' wife and kids are on the train. Van Damme's real life son, Kristopher, plays his son here. The only time Jean-Claude comes to life throughout “Derailed” is when he's practicing roundhouse kicks with his boy. Otherwise, the film's supporting cast is disheartening. Laura Harring appears as the thief/acrobat. Harring shows none of the talent she displayed in “Mulholland Dr.,” instead giving a garish and obnoxious performance. Susan Gibney is bitchy as Jacques' wife. The hostages include a cowboy, an Australian, and a concert violinist, each one broad stereotypes. Even the bad guy, played by a baffled Tomas Arana, seems pretty bored.
“Derailed” too perfectly sums up the kind of schlock Nu Image/Millennium Productions specialized in at the time. The mixture of shitty CGI, derivative writing, and incoherent action were standard practice at the company. Even by these low standards, the film finds new ways to baffle the viewer with its incompetence. “Derailed” might've become enjoyably bad – one of Van Damme's foes attacks him with a fork – if it wasn't incredibly boring. By the last half-hour, I had completely lost the ability to care or understand anything that was happening in this movie. The film is garbage of the highest degree and it's a bummer that Van Damme had to star in it. [2/10]
[THE VAN DAMMAGE: 3 outta 5] [] An Entire Fight, Sans Shirt [X] Close-Up Screaming [] Dancing [X] Jump-Kicks A Guy, Through Something [X] Performs Either a Split or a Spinning Roundhouse Kick
By 2001, Jean-Claude Van Damme teaming up with Nu Image / Millennium Films only made too much sense. These days, Nu Image has gone semi-legit by producing the “Expendables” and “Olympus Has Fallen” franchises. In the nineties and early naughties, they were best known for low budget action and horror schlock. We're talking the likes of “Crocodile” and “Cyborg Cop.” Sadly, this was exactly the level Van Damme was operating on at the time. He would star in five films for Nu Image. Among these, “The Order” would re-pair Van Damme with his “Lionheart” and “Double Impact” director, Sheldon Lettich. Jean-Claude would also work on the script. The result is a fitfully amusing action/adventure flick with a somewhat schizoid tone.
Many years ago, a disenchanted Templar Knight started a mysterious new religious sect in the Middle East, known as the Order. Despite the last part of their religious text disappearing, the cult survives into the present day. The knight's modern day descendant is Ruby Cafmeyer, a thief who steals ancient artifacts for his archaeologist dad. Their latest discovery is the reminder of the knight's writings, which also includes a map to a treasure-filled temple under Jerusalem. While in the holy city, Ruby comes into conflict with the fanatical current day leader of the cult, who kidnap his dad, and plan on triggering a holy war by setting off a bomb in the hidden temple.
It's not too hard to see that Van Damme co-wrote “The Order.” The film features the star's trademarks early and often. Within the first five minutes, the Muscle from Brussels is jump-kicking security guards, spinning around enemies, and performing roundhouse kicks. He dances both in the heat of combat and casually. He even does a mid-air split! Lettich seems to delight in putting Van Damme's trademark action in goofy situation. The opening has him wearing clownish face paint. He tussles in a fountain. The absolute highlight of the film is an extended chase/fight through the streets of Jerusalem. Throughout this scene, Van Damme is dressed like a Hasidic Jew, with a beard on his chin, black hat on his head, and payot curls framing his face. You haven't lived until you've seen Van Damme kicking ass while dressed as a rabbi!
Sadly, “The Order” doesn't maintain this tone of goofy nonsense throughout. Midway through, Ruby sneaks into the Order while wearing their white-and-red robes. (The Order's symbol, a stone cross in a circle, resembles the Klu Klux Klan emblem. Presumably, this was unintentional.) Afterwards, the film's excessively wacky atmosphere takes a more dour direction. The finale was clearly hoping to capture an “Indiana Jones” tone. Our hero, after all, is exploring a hidden temple laden with booby traps and treasure. By the time Van Damme is sword-fighting with the main baddy, most of the fun has been sucked out of “The Order.” The movie attempts to recapture this at the last minute, when Van Damme looses his shirt just for the hell of it. But it's too little, too late by that point.
“The Order” was pretty clearly a very cheap production. Really shitty CGI is utilized to depict explosions and a guy getting impaled on a wooden winch. Most of the film is set in nondescript city streets and generic temple sets. Sheldon Lettich's direction on “Lionheart” and “Double Impact” was solid, even atmospheric. Yet the editing here is weirdly incompetent. There's several car chases that are terribly assembled. A vehicle leaps into the air, smashing through a wall of water jugs, without hitting a ramp. Later, an airport chase scene features some roughly edited crashes and zooms. “The Order” looks kind of shitty in general, which I'm willing to blame on Nu Image/Millennium's rushed production schedule.
Jean-Claude Van Damme generally seems to be having fun in “The Order.” He is clearly embracing his comedic side in the film's early scenes. The entire production is full of balletic action scenes, allowing the star to kick and leap to his heart's content. What of the supporting cast? Charlton Heston is in the movie, which seems like it should be a big deal. But don't get too excited. He's only in a few scenes and is then abruptly killed off. Heston does his job but doesn't impress. Sofia Milos appears as the tough Israeli cop who bosses Van Damme around. The two don't share much romantic chemistry, which was clearly the intended goal. Brian Thompson, previously of “Cobra,” appears as the bad guy. Thompson barks stern dialogue while wearing a silly robe. He tries to ham it up but the part isn't even that interesting.
“The Order” is about what you'd expect from a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie made in 2001. It's cheaply made, shoddily directed, sloppily written, and features some B-list talent in the supporting cast. Having said that, the film does provide some pleasures for fans of the star. The fight scenes are solid and there's some delightfully kooky humor. I mean, any movie that has Van Damme doing a split-kick in mid-air while dressed in Jewish drag can't be totally worthless! But, all together, “The Order” isn't too memorable. [6/10]
[THE VAN DAMMAGE: 5 outta 5] [X] An Entire Fight, Sans Shirt [X] Close-Up Screaming [X] Dancing [X] Jump-Kicks A Guy, Through Something [X] Performs Either a Split or a Spinning Roundhouse Kick
