Verdict
Summary
JCVD has been in plenty of other, better action movies so I would seek them out and give this a miss.
Plot: Counter-terrorist Jack Quinn misses his target, Stavros, on the eve of his final mission. From there, he is sent to “The Colony”, a rebirth for presumed-dead assassins. He breaks free from there, and seeks the aid of Yaz, a weapons dealer, for his final battle with Stavros.
Review: Oh dear, what were they thinking? Van Damme seems completely out of it in this movie; I believe this was during his dark times and you can really tell. He just doesn’t seem to be there at all, otherwise he may have actually read the script before signing up for this cheap rip-off of The Prisoner.
Dennis Rodman is truly appalling and has some of the worst dialogue of all time, including more basketball lingo than you can possibly bare. Also, what the hell is up with his wardrobe? Utterly baffling.
Despite the fact that the film is pretty rotten; it’s got that so bad, it’s good thing going on. It also has some decent action scenes including an epic training montage involving a bathtub; the opening chase scene is pretty cool too. The fight scenes are well done but that’s because of the involvement of one Sammo Hung who was brought in as Special Action Choreographer.
There is also the bonus of Mickey Rourke who is absolutely HUGE in it as the villain Stavros and makes the best of what dialogue he is given. He also has one of the most inventive bad guy deaths of all time, which involves a minefield… and a tiger… yup. Oh, and he gets to walk away from an explosion in slow motion.
Gary Chang provides a pretty memorable score with a good theme tune, which is arguably the best thing about the movie.
Paul Freeman (Beloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark) also makes an appearance as Goldsmythe; the leader of the Colony who REALLY must have needed the money. He does class things up though.
The film moves along at a fast pace so it’s never boring, but it’s not necessarily good either. There are some terrible special effects throughout it and it almost feels like it’s unfinished.
There were actually plans for a sequel but due to the overwhelmingly negative reaction from pretty much everyone, it never happened.
Overall, JCVD has been in plenty of other, better action movies so I would seek them out and give this a miss.