Great movie
Added 9/12/2009
I ordered this movie for my son also. It took longer for this movie to arrive than the others that I had ordered, but not over the time frame that I was given. It was in good condition when it arrived and Luke has watched it over and over.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Interesting movie for Van Damme
Added 7/6/2009
I have seen his movie double impact where he plays two roles but this movie it seemed he actually did some acting for it.
I enjoyed it and glad to have it in my collection.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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None Other Like It; A Very Good Van Damme Flick
Added 6/7/2009
For better or worse, Jean-Claude Van Damme holds an amount of recognition as "the guy who plays twins a lot". Double Impact was cool and Maximum Risk was a step out of the ordinary for the Muscles from Brussels, but I dare say that Van Damme's second outing with director Ringo Lam (City on Fire) takes the cake as the best instance of the European karate expert playing two lookalikes. It's probably one of the man's better outings of his DTV career, and definitely one of the strangest of all of his films...but it's strange in a fun-to-watch kind of way, to the point that I'd advise all Van Damme fans to give it a buy if they can live without the usual abundance of martial arts.
The story: detective Jake Riley (Michael Rooker, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) ends his active career unable to tie up his final case - that of the mother-murdering serial killer, Edward "the Torch" Garrotte (Van Damme). With Garrotte refusing to cease his killing spree, Jake is made aware of a national security project to clone the killer and use the genetic memory inherited by his "replicant" to track down the real murderer. The replicant is entrusted to Jake, who attempts to coerce the macabre knowledge out of him, all whilst unsure whether this artificially-created human is just as much of a beast as the original.
A point of interest: this is the only film for which Van Damme was nominated for an actual acting award - the DVD Exclusive Award for "Best Actor". He didn't win it, but nevertheless, it's nice to see some recognition for his efforts to become more than an action star. That being said, I think that only half of his performance deserves the nomination: as the replicant, Van Damme's left to rely almost entirely on physical expression and body language and therein pulls off one of the better performances of his career as a naïve, newborn human, while his take on Garrotte the killer is much less interesting than even his previous roles as bad guys.
The film doesn't have a very large starring cast, but those involved generally do a good job. Michael Rooker is a vastly underrated actor who gives a very entertaining performance, but has a bad habit of going off the cartoony end when he has to start shouting. Catherine Dent ("The Shield") co-stars as Riley's ex-partner, and while she doesn't have a lot of screentime, she makes good use of it. Marnie Alton would later be promoted to the role of Van Damme's wife in In Hell, but here she plays a prostitute whom the replicant takes a liking to; her scene is probably the most awkward one in the film, but she makes it work even when Van Damme is dry-humping her leg.
There is significantly less action in "Replicant" than there is in, say, Sudden Death, but if you're willing to wait for it, what's there is not bad at all. Martial arts are kept to a minimum, with Garrotte only throwing out a handful of kicks as he pursues his victims. The replicant steals the show: though he imitates his evil self to land a few roundhouse kicks in the film's finale, he utilizes gymnastics he learned as a human-in-training, and these lead to a fun four fight scenes in which he swings on poles and pretends he's on a vaulting horse (these parts are obviously filmed using a double, but it's close enough that you don't notice the exchange - as in the scenes in which the replicant confronts his original self). In addition, there are some reasonably neat stunts scenes involving Riley getting hit by a car and a couple of explosions, as well as one involving a runaway ambulance that ends up roof-down in a stairwell.
Rooker's character comes off a bit unlikeable when he's callously unable to differentiate between the killer and the pitiable man in his care (until the end, of course), and there's a bit of weird scene where he figures the only way he can locate a tracking device on the replicant is to strip him down to his underwear and feel him up while his mother (the character's) watches. Besides that, it's a thoroughly high-end DTV film with an interesting story and great production values that take next to no sloppy shortcuts. Even non-Van Damme fans, those looking for an out-of-the-ordinary thriller, wouldn't be ill-advised in checking this one out. Bit by bit, Van Damme is making himself more accessible to non-action fans, and this was a big step in the right direction.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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exellent!!!!
Added 6/4/2009
The movie is great van damme does a great job playing both characters. also comes with a few features witch i thought were very nice.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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worst van damn movie he has ever made
Added 11/19/2008
this is pure crap dont buy this movie the story line might sound really good but trust me the way they did it sucks the whole movie van damn looks pathetic and im his biggest fan which makes me sad that they put him in this movie he really isnt even the main star and he plays two rolls this is just crap dont buy this movie its not even a kicking movie till the end which fight seen was a joke why people rated this movie so good idk but trust me its his worst movie ever
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Great movie
Added 9/12/2009
I ordered this movie for my son also. It took longer for this movie to arrive than the others that I had ordered, but not over the time frame that I was given. It was in good condition when it arrived and Luke has watched it over and over.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Interesting movie for Van Damme
Added 7/6/2009
I have seen his movie double impact where he plays two roles but this movie it seemed he actually did some acting for it.
I enjoyed it and glad to have it in my collection.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
None Other Like It; A Very Good Van Damme Flick
Added 6/7/2009
For better or worse, Jean-Claude Van Damme holds an amount of recognition as "the guy who plays twins a lot". Double Impact was cool and Maximum Risk was a step out of the ordinary for the Muscles from Brussels, but I dare say that Van Damme's second outing with director Ringo Lam (City on Fire) takes the cake as the best instance of the European karate expert playing two lookalikes. It's probably one of the man's better outings of his DTV career, and definitely one of the strangest of all of his films...but it's strange in a fun-to-watch kind of way, to the point that I'd advise all Van Damme fans to give it a buy if they can live without the usual abundance of martial arts.
The story: detective Jake Riley (Michael Rooker, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) ends his active career unable to tie up his final case - that of the mother-murdering serial killer, Edward "the Torch" Garrotte (Van Damme). With Garrotte refusing to cease his killing spree, Jake is made aware of a national security project to clone the killer and use the genetic memory inherited by his "replicant" to track down the real murderer. The replicant is entrusted to Jake, who attempts to coerce the macabre knowledge out of him, all whilst unsure whether this artificially-created human is just as much of a beast as the original.
A point of interest: this is the only film for which Van Damme was nominated for an actual acting award - the DVD Exclusive Award for "Best Actor". He didn't win it, but nevertheless, it's nice to see some recognition for his efforts to become more than an action star. That being said, I think that only half of his performance deserves the nomination: as the replicant, Van Damme's left to rely almost entirely on physical expression and body language and therein pulls off one of the better performances of his career as a naïve, newborn human, while his take on Garrotte the killer is much less interesting than even his previous roles as bad guys.
The film doesn't have a very large starring cast, but those involved generally do a good job. Michael Rooker is a vastly underrated actor who gives a very entertaining performance, but has a bad habit of going off the cartoony end when he has to start shouting. Catherine Dent ("The Shield") co-stars as Riley's ex-partner, and while she doesn't have a lot of screentime, she makes good use of it. Marnie Alton would later be promoted to the role of Van Damme's wife in In Hell, but here she plays a prostitute whom the replicant takes a liking to; her scene is probably the most awkward one in the film, but she makes it work even when Van Damme is dry-humping her leg.
There is significantly less action in "Replicant" than there is in, say, Sudden Death, but if you're willing to wait for it, what's there is not bad at all. Martial arts are kept to a minimum, with Garrotte only throwing out a handful of kicks as he pursues his victims. The replicant steals the show: though he imitates his evil self to land a few roundhouse kicks in the film's finale, he utilizes gymnastics he learned as a human-in-training, and these lead to a fun four fight scenes in which he swings on poles and pretends he's on a vaulting horse (these parts are obviously filmed using a double, but it's close enough that you don't notice the exchange - as in the scenes in which the replicant confronts his original self). In addition, there are some reasonably neat stunts scenes involving Riley getting hit by a car and a couple of explosions, as well as one involving a runaway ambulance that ends up roof-down in a stairwell.
Rooker's character comes off a bit unlikeable when he's callously unable to differentiate between the killer and the pitiable man in his care (until the end, of course), and there's a bit of weird scene where he figures the only way he can locate a tracking device on the replicant is to strip him down to his underwear and feel him up while his mother (the character's) watches. Besides that, it's a thoroughly high-end DTV film with an interesting story and great production values that take next to no sloppy shortcuts. Even non-Van Damme fans, those looking for an out-of-the-ordinary thriller, wouldn't be ill-advised in checking this one out. Bit by bit, Van Damme is making himself more accessible to non-action fans, and this was a big step in the right direction.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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