"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Sudden Death

There are about three kinds of Jean-Claude Van Damme pictures in my opinion. There are the real experimental, artsy type like Double Team and Knock Off (the best kind), the real cheap and crappy ones like Cyborg and Double Impact (the worst kind), and the more expensive ones where he’s trying to become a more respectable mainstream action star (the kind that Sudden Death is).

I have a hard time reviewing this picture since it is an unofficial sequel to Die Hard. For those of you who don’t know I am a HUGE fan of the Die Hard pictures (starring Bruce Willis, look it up if you haven’t seen it) because, as a fan do I want to support this as part of the die hard mythos or should I not support it since it is unofficial, it is hard to say.

Sudden DeathFor legal reasons, McClane’s name has been changed to McCord, and he is being played by Van Damme instead of Bruce. He is now a fire marshall and instead of saving Hollie he has two kids going to the hockey game while he’s on duty. Hans Grueber (now played by a different guy) has planted bombs in the arena and has taken over the vice president’s VIP box seats. He’s gonna blow up the whole arena with everybody in it if the feds don’t transfer a whole assload of money to his bank accounts and what not.

Van Damme does not do the smartass oneliners that Bruce does, but he does a pretty decent job and he wears an undershirt like Bruce does. One complaint I think they should have shaved his hairline to make him look more like Bruce.

Now at the beginning I didn’t think I was gonna like this picture because it was too cutesy to be believed. For cryin out loud the guy sign languages “I love you” to his kids before he goes on his shift. When he’s gone the kids have an argument about whether or not their dad is brave. And before there’s any sign of danger he tells his son to stay in his seat no matter what, “even if the building is falling down around you, stay in your seat.” Well gee willikers I wonder where this one is going.

There are some good tricks though, like they introduce this chef character who impresses the kids with a meat cleaver trick, and you’re thinking, “Gee, I wonder if that’s gonna come up later.” But about three minutes later the guy gets shot and you never see the cleaver again. Good stuff.

In the beginning of a die hard picture what you gotta do is establish how organized and how vicious these terrorist bastards are. So one technique they use on this one is where Hans shoots a secret service agent and the vice president says, “That agent was named so-and-so, he has a five year old son, a three year old daughter, and his wife is pregnant.” So that way you know that it is so bad that they killed him.

Of course McCord quickly finds out about the terrorist plot going on and it turns out he knows alot of karate for a fire marshall, and doesn’t have a problem beating people to death. Right away there is a good scene where he savagely murders a gal in a penguin costume. His daughter becomes one of the hostages and this time it’s personal. He doesn’t try to pick the terrorists off one by one like McClane usually does, but if they try to stop him from defusing the bombs, he kills them using kitchen supplies, hockey gear, fire, or what have you.

One of the best parts is when he’s running from some dudes, and he has no choice but to steal a guy’s hockey uniform and go out on the ice and be goalie in the big game. It is a great way to hide but also I’m thinking wow, this is a good twist, now the movie’s gonna be about will they win the game or not.

But again, the movie is not going where you think it is, actually it goes back to the terrorist story when the dudes notice him out on the ice. So then I’m thinking maybe they’ll have to disguise themselves as players from the other team so they can get out on the ice and shoot him. But no, the dumbass gets kicked out of the game for a flagrant foul and has to fight them in the locker room where it is more difficult to wear skates, because there is no ice.

There is a really cool and ridiculous stunt that I won’t give away, where McCord gets his daughter back and saves all the hostages. Hans has his perfect chance to run off and go collect his money. But instead he puts on an elaborate disguise with fake mustache and blond hair and kidnaps McCord’s daughter, forcing McCord to come after him. It’s just one of those stupid mistakes you make, you get nervous and you slip up you know. There is always some little way to drop the ball… the closer you get, the farther you are in some ways. I mean if I had a nickel for every stupid motherfucker that made it to the home stretch and then crashed into a parked car or got his pants stuck on a fence or dropped the money down a sewer or slipped on a pile of wet leaves and broke his tailbone or, as in this case, put on a fake mustache and kidnapped the daughter of an over zealous fire marshall, I would be able to drop these reel.com banners that’s for sure.

I think McCord is the real jackass in this situation, though. He also has the chance to get away, he has his kids with him, he saved all the hostages, and the building is evacuated. But I guess it just chaps his ass to think he’s busting his balls every day as this hockey arena fire marshall, changing light bulbs and what not, trying to raise two kids on his own on this measly salary, I mean really WORKING for a good honest living – and then here’s this German fuckhead Hans Grueber getting all these billions of dollars for one day of work. And I mean he wasn’t even planting the bombs or anything, he was just sitting on his ass up there in the box seats. He killed a few people but big deal, it was a gun and they weren’t armed, it wasn’t like hand to hand or anything. I mean if anyone deserves this money it’s the blue collar terrorists, the guys who put their blood sweat and tears into chasing McCord around the arena, the guys who ended up set on fire or blown up or steam pressed because this fire marshall happens to be so god damned ingenuitive.

I think this must be what McCord was thinking when he chased after Grueber and climbed onto his helicopter and made sure to kill the bastard. (The big surprise here is that even though McCord refers to the situation as a “game” throughout the movie, he doesn’t say “I win” or “game over” when he kills him. Good restraint there bud, seriously.)

But I don’t think this is good judgment on McCord’s part and I think he should be ashamed of himself and so should the whole fire department. I mean maybe if he was a security guard he should chase the guy down, it would be his job. But he’s a fire marshall, his job is to prevent fires which means he should NOT be blowing up helicopters while he’s on the clock. I hope if there is another sequel it will start out with him fired and disgraced or at least on suspension like McClane in the beginning of Die Hard: With A Vengeance. If he gets away with this then I can only say that this kind of lenience by employers is the reason why the american work ethic is often so shoddy, they can get away with this kinda crap.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 1st, 2003 at 7:41 am and is filed under Action, Reviews, Thriller. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

46 Responses to “Sudden Death”

  1. For some I always dismissed this, but caught it through Netflix and you know what? I rather quite enjoyed it.

    Out of the DIE HARD clones that clogged Hollywood aciton cinema in the 1990s, I would say that SUDDEN DEATH fits rather nicely between the masterpeice knock-off UNDER SIEGE, and the rather lame AIR FORCE ONE.

    Strange how both DEATH and AFO follow the DH formula to the hip, and yet while it lasted, I liked DEATH but couldn’t give two shits about AFO. Why is that? My theory:

    (1) the DIE HARD plot doesn’t work at all on an airplane. It’s ludicrous, and not the good kind. And nobody bring up PASSENGER 57. That didn’t work either. Nor EXECUTIVE DECISION.

    (2) Such clones need to differentiate somehow from the others to sell. With AFO, the U.S. President is the hero. But what do they do with that gimmick? Nothing different. Imagine if a chicken-hawk President like Clinton or Dubya-type instead of Han Solo? That would be more interesting.

    (3) SUDDEN DEATH at least we get some fun creative kills & threats: Hot grill, French Frier, industrial dishwasher, hitwoman in mascot costume, meat slicer, exercise equipment, fire, homemade incendiary device, skates, good shit.

    (4) Peter Hyams crafted effectively a very slick airport novel action/thriller, which is fitting because DIE HARD in itself was based off such a procedural pulp work. I always admired Hyams for willingness to always work different genres, never afraid of victory or defeat. Also he lights his own pictures. That’s awesome.

    (5) Also Van Damme for most of DEATH doesn’t have a gun. When he does use one, it dillutes run of the mill to otherwise compelling action cinema.

  2. This is actually one of my favorite Van Damme flicks. The main one is Hard Target. Anyway, you made no mention of the fight between McCord and the hitwoman disguised at a mascot. That was priceless.

  3. I’ve always had a soft spot for MAXIMUM RISK.

  4. By the way, are there any experts on Van Damme out there who can point out what to watch and what to avoid? I’ve just realized that I haven’t seen that many movies with the man. I’m almost through Dolph’s canon now, and ready for something else.

  5. Pegsman, I’d recommend Hard Target, Kickboxer, Sudden Death, Wrong Bet (also called Lionheart), UniSol, UniSol Regeneration and Bloodsport the most.

    Timecop is fun although I’d rank it a bit lower, and although UniSol The Return is mostly pretty bland, it’s got a pretty cool end fight against MJW.

    Maybe avoid Street Fighter (and most of his late era DTV stuff), and personally I’ve never liked Nowhere To Run.

  6. Pegsman, I’d second Mike A’s list, but re: Van Damme’s DTV stuff, I actually enjoyed both The Hard Corps and Second in Command when I saw them on TV. I’m also a sucker for Nowhere to Run; it’s small and minor but it’s nice to see him in a T2-style relationship with a kid, and Rosanna Arquette is gorgeous.

    His best acting performance is definitely in JCVD, even though the movie itself isn’t very good. I definitely recommend the outrageous Double Team if you like Torque-like craziness, as well as the very similar Knock Off. Looking through his major filmography he actually doesn’t have many duds, the only ones I didn’t really like were Death Warrant, Double Impact and Sudden Death, but I’d still recommend catching them on TV if you can.

  7. Wake of Death and Until Death perhaps?

  8. Those are actually two great lateJCVD movies in my opinion. Especially Until Death has some really strong acting on his part. More a character piece than fullblown action if I remember correctly, but it´s really solid. Both of those movies are.Also,te recent Six Bullets is pretty damn great in my opinion.

  9. Looks like I’ve seen a lot of the “good ones” after all. I saw NOWHERE TO RUN with my then 70 year old father (he’s dead now, and he only liked 70’s Bronson movies and HIGH ROAD TO CHINA) and he liked it, so I’m sort of obliged to like it. And I’m half way through SUDDEN DEATH now, and I haven’t turned it off yet. Oh, and I think MAXIMUM RISK anf THE SHEPHERD are really cool.

  10. Oh man, HIGH ROAD TO CHINA. A perfectly good old-school romantic hero role for Tom Selleck ruined by the fact that Hollywood never came up with a leading lady who could match him. He’s seven feet tall and possessed of the world’s manliest mustache and he gets paired time and again with these tiny, shrill college sophomore types. He always seems like he’s babysitting, not courting.

  11. Mr. M – So I take it you’re not a QUIGLY DOWN UNDER fan then?

  12. Same problem, but that movie’s got more going for it, i.e. Alan Rickman’s in it.

  13. I dont think there is a skipable Van Damme theatrical release.

  14. Laura San Giacomo might be half the size of Selleck, but I do think she has the right temperament to make a good match for him in QUIGLEY. And even if The Moustache often is looked upon as this romantic leading man, I think he’s at his best when he play grumpy old men like police chief Stone.

  15. In theory, San Giacomo might have worked, but the character she was playing was impossible. She came off more like a retarded teenager than a grown woman that a stud like Selleck should be bedding down with. It was kind of uncomfortable to watch.

  16. You could skip DEATH WARRANT. Under no circumstances are you to skip STREET FIGHTER: THE MOVIE. I always liked MAXIMUM RISK myslef, but it’s no DOUBLE TEAM. I enjoyed THE QUEST too but it’s UNISOL, SUDDEN DEATH, BLOODSPORT, KICKBOXER, DOUBLE IMPACT and I guess HARD TARGET. I always hated TIMECOP and still do. Funny that’s his most mainstream and most popular.

    QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER is awesome. One of my all time favs, just a great old school adventure.

  17. Fred: I like QDU overall (you’re right, it has an old school sense of scope that you don’t see much anymore when you know most exteriors are CGI-enhanced) but San Giacomo’s entire role, from the way it’s written to the way it’s performed, is just embarrassing. Remember the part where she fights a bunch of symbolic wolves and all of a sudden she’s magically cured of the crazy? I don’t think there’s an actress on earth who could have pulled that role off.

  18. Yeah, I would say KICKBOXER, BLOODSPORT, LIONHEART, HARD TARGET and DOUBLE TEAM are the unmissable non-Unisol Van Dammes. LIONHEART would be at the top of those for me if I wasn’t so addicted to the silliness of DOUBLE TEAM.

  19. I don’t think DOUBLE IMPACT gets enough love. I like how they explain one brother’s Belgian accent (which is supposed to be French for some reason) but not why the brother who grew up in Hong Kong talks the same way. And Geoffrey Lewis is great as the grizzled mentor who gets beat up a lot.

  20. Thanks guys. Looks like I’ve seen a lot of the good ones after all. Haven’t seen LIONHEART though, so I will start with that.

  21. So what do you guys think about TIMECOP? It just came out on bluray over here, and I gave it another go around. Been twenty years (!) since I last saw it on ye olde vhs. I think it holds up pretty well as a crossover between the respectable mainstream type of Van Damme vehicle that Vern described for SUDDEN DEATH, and the more experimental type, what with the mashing of action and sci-fi/time travel genres.

    It’s real 90’s in the high-concept sci-fi stuff, even though the time travel stuff makes little sense, and they were clearly trying to give Jean Claude a go at the corny Arnold one-liners – to a guy caught having virtual reality sex – “Looks like safe sex to me.” Clunk.

    Van Damme also shows his dramatic side with the dead-wife/family subplot, which appears in his later DTV’s like WAKE OF DEATH and UNTIL DEATH.

    (PS I know Franchise Fred hates it already. Have seen his comments across multiple threads. Any change of heart since then, Fred?)

  22. I give TIMECOP three sad puppies out of five. Why Fred hates it is beyond me. It is “Good Enough” – Van Damme.

  23. Poe and Shoot, I have been revisiting ’90s movies so that may be a good reason to give Timecop another chance. At the time, my biggest beef was that they had all of time travel at their disposal, but they spent most of the movie going right back to 1994. Maybe now I’ll see it as a period piece.

    I also thought the “same matter can’t occupy same space” thing was bullshit. 2004 Ron Silver is not the same matter as 1994 Ron Silver. Molecules are changing by the second! But as we now know, it’s just like that movie Looper but a million times better.

  24. It is better than LOOPER…

  25. I still dig TIMECOP. It gets the job done. What I like to call a TNT movie: You can’t go to sleep but hey, TNT is playing . Guess I don’t NEED to go to sleep..

    I too wish they did more with the time travel gimmick, though the two we got in the past were a lot of fun, but once I got over that hangup, I enjoy it. I’m pro-bad-guy-turns-into-a-shitty-early-90s-blob by touching-his-past-self man myself.

    I know I told this story in the JEAN CLAUDE VAN JOHNSON thread but screw-it: when I was explaining the plot of LOOPER to co-workers, one of my supervisors got a really smug look on his face and with an even more smug tone said: “You ever seen TIMECOP, because that’s the EXACT same plot!” It’s of coarse not, but never let real-actual-facts get in the way of being a contrarian-asshole. So I had a real good laugh with that comparison in the pilot.

    Anyone see the DTV/TV Movie sequel? I know I saw it but I can’t tell you a single damned thing about it.

    —-
    Since I’m in the thread, SUDDEN DEATH is an awesome and superior DIE HARD-clone. Was interested in what the movie was like before, when it was a parody of DIE HARD-style movies. At least they did the right thing and left the fight with the mascot in.
    —-
    The recommendations are over, but I also support LIONHEART. Fans need to talk about that one more!

  26. I did see Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision and I remember liking it because at least it went into the past, and dealt with the age old question, “Would you kill Hitler?” I was also hoping Jason Scott Lee would turn into a bona fide action star, but alas…

    Did I miss when Sudden Death was developed as a parody?

  27. I really need a re-watch of Van Damme movies because there are some I haven’t seen in forever. Timecop is one of them.

    I remember really not liking Maximum Risk when I saw it in the theater but years later I rewatched it and really enjoyed it. I had never really seen a Ringo Lam film before Maximum Risk so I was expecting more of a John Woo movie at the time. I guess having seen Ringo Lam films in between viewings my expectations were adjusted accordingly.

    This might seem controversial but Van Damme’s entire filmography is so much better than Seagal’s filmography.

    Also, Sudden Death is fucking great.

  28. Oh yeah Ringo Lam, which reminds me I also watched IN HELL for the first time, the night after revisiting TIMECOP, another haunted-by-dead-wife one for Van Damme. It’s basically Stallone’s LOCK UP via SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION but with more brawling. Also, it may have informed UNDISPUTED 3. I thought it was great.

  29. Poeface – Does that mean you saw TIMECOP during its theatrical release here in Australia, during that dark and murky 90s era of our antipodian past that I refer to as “the M years” where films such as TIMECOP were hacked to pieces to secure a more audience friendly rating after the dread MA15+ classification was announced? In its theatrical iteration there were literally jump cuts all throughout the movie where entire frames were slashed wholesale from the final locked print. Another movie to suffer such ignominy during this time was THE GETAWAY. Same shit happened to ROBOCOP 2, PREDATOR 2 and TOTAL RECALL as well. They were all released uncut at a later date on home video of course but still, when I saw TMECOP at the movies it was like goddamned Godard cut that shit.

  30. Fred: I read a few places and (the ALWAYS reliable, no exceptions!) IMDB and Wikipedia state that, like LAST ACTION HERO, the script was written as a parody of DIE HARD-like movies, written by a producer’s wife I think (?). Also like LAST ACTION HERO, when the studio started developing the script, either the satire was lost on them or they decided that it would work EVEN BETTER as a straight action movie version of what it is parodying. I think we can agree that SUDDEN DEATH came out much more consistent (not a slap at LAST ACTION HERO, which is it’s own special snowflake in the world of cinema). Like I said, it’s something I read in a few places. For all I know it’s been debunked, regardless I think the movie ended up with was a real good version of that type of action movie.

    Stern: I can’t see many, with a straight face, defending Seagal’s filmography over Van Damme’s. I guess maybe comparing certain phases, but not the entirety of their filmography’s (example: someone arguing Seagal’s “Golden Age” is better than Van Damme’s whole filmography, etc.)

    Poeface: IN HELL is an under-rated game. It was one of the first ones were Van Damme was becoming much more humbled and trying to flex his acting muscles. Like REPLICANT*, also directed by Ringo Lam, it unfortunately came out in between his “Big Star” period and “Comeback” period, which puts it squarely in his “Has Been” period which many feel is easily ignored. I never saw the correlation between IN HELL and UNDISPUTED III before, now that you mention it though I can’t unsee.
    *yeah REPLICANT has a really silly B-Movie premise (obviously trying to ride the coat-tales of FACE/OFF) but I argue that Lam’s direction and everyone’s performances sells the reality of the movie.

  31. MIXALOT, I missed TIMECOP at cinemas (thankfully by the sound of it, or I could have had a Franchise Fred experience), but I remember those oppressive years. Funny that most of the movies you mentioned are Fox titles. I didn’t really notice the cuts till they were released on DVD in the late 90’s early 00’s.

    The one that got my severest annoyance was the butchered BRAVEHEART dvd where a lot of the gore was removed. I used to be that pain in the arse guy writing in to the monthly rag WhatDVD asking all these questions about the cuts and why the running time was significantly shorter. They thought I was imagining it all, and explained it as though I were comparing it to the NTSC time frames as opposed to PAL. I told them to fuck off, and they sent me a bunch of free dvds.

    But it was great to see Fox UK release an uncut bluray of COMMANDO. I jumped on that shit.

  32. Geoffrey, probly more a correlation to both UNDISPUTED’s 2-3, particularly MJW’s character in 2. Boyka stands in his own unique story and redemption from villain to dark hero over two films.

  33. Kickboxer was cut upon initial release in Australia too in order to avoid an R rating and to keep this post at least somewhat Van Damme oriented. Having said that, it still grinds my gears that to this day the only way to see HELLRAISER, CANDYMAN or RAZORBACK uncut anywhere in the world is via long out of print VHS or the occasional mythical Japanese laserdisc.

  34. It has been awhile, soI may have to rewatch this in the future ( no pun intended)

  35. TIMECOP really hasn’t aged that well, but only because it counted as cool action back then, but by today’s standards feels more like a Network TV pilot. An entertaining one, but nothing to get too excited about.

  36. TIMECOP is in the lower tier of his mid 90s and late 90s stuff in retrospect. I like this, DOUBLE TEAM and MAXIMUM RISK better but I still dig TIMECOP. It actually has a lot of great remake potential.

  37. I never saw Timecop or Sudden Death when they first came out. Watched both recently – Timecop was really boring and Sudden Death was unexpectedly great. At one point, I was hoping that all of Sudden Death would just be Van Damme fighting people in the kitchen. It’s by far the most surreal Van Damme movie – the mascot fight, the goalie scene. Unreal.

    I can’t imagine anyone at any point in the history of the world arguing that Seagal had better movies than Van Damme. Bloodsport and Kickboxer are better than any Seagal movies. And most of Van Damme’s movies range from watchable to great.

  38. I had mixed feelings about this one on a recent revisit. Main problem was JCVD playing the everyman John McClane role. He’s Chance Boudreaux, Kickboxer, the Muscles from Brussels for crying out loud. All of which I love him for but it’s way too much baggage to get my head around him being the underdog in this.

    I did like the escalation of insane stunts in the third act. McCla…sorry I mean McCord trapezing through the stadium roof during sudden death. Taking a bullet in the shoulder for his daughter, then instead of taking her to safety like a responsible father he jumps on the helicopter ladder and shoots the crew midair just so we can have the Hans Gruber slow-mo falling death scene as Powers Boothe, disguised as Ron Burgundy screams “No, no, noooo…”.

    One thing I will always be grateful for in SUDDEN DEATH is the frequent on-screen foretelling that a much much greater action film was coming to change our lives forever…

    Mastor Troy - Google+

    Mastor Troy - Google+

  39. So I just re-watched this yesterday for no other reason than the fact they’ve just done a remake with MJW in the Van Damme role and I wanted to see if the original held up. A strange JCVD to remake as SUDDEN DEATH underperformed at the box office but am glad they had the good sense to cast another legit martial artist in the role as opposed to, I don’t know Luke Goss or someone.

    Watching this after almost 10 years, I gotta say, SUDDEN DEATH is still largely entertaining but is marred by a mid section which plods. I didn’t mind the film taking it’s time with the set-up or the fact that it’s almost a full 40 minutes before Van Damme springs into action. Then you get the Penguin Fight which still remains the movie’s best and most inventive sequence, followed almost immediately by another cool one where Van Damme takes out another baddy with a bone.

    But after that, the film settles into some needlessly overdrawn scenes of JCVD disarming the bombs (a time waster as he’s simply working off an educated guess), a million cut aways to the game, the late, great Powers Boothe eating shrimp and figuring out who next to execute while the Computer Nerd checks if the money is being transferred and a completely useless subplot about a turn coat Secret Service who’s coordinating the rescue outside. It then kicks back into high gear for the last half hour which I enjoyed, Hyams’ superb staging and filming of the action sequences making up for a noticeable lack of budget.

    Not bad, but this for me, is still the (slightly) lesser Hyams/Van Damme joint below TIMECOP which benefits from a better sense of pacing, more action and JCVD’s fancy footwork.

    Now, keeping my fingers crossed that WELCOME TO SUDDEN DEATH doesn’t shit the bed….

  40. Sure, but if you’re stuck with a weak midsection, having Powers Boothe eat shrimp is definitely one of the all time great solutions to the problem.

    What I’ve always admired about SUDDEN DEATH is its use of the hockey stadium as a setting; it’s integral not incidental. Aside from the penguin mascot fight, which takes place in the kitchen, we get another fight in the kit room, a chase across the seats, JCVD having to take to the ice, bodies delivered by Zamboni, and that wonderful retractable roof. And I’ve always assumed, with no knowledge of ice rink management, that the flood that happens during the ecacuation is caused by some breach of the icemaking machinery. The sense of location keeps the movie grounded in a reality even as the action ramps up into the heights of ridiculousness.

    TIMECOP may be the better movie, but only just, and I wouldn’t really want to choose.

  41. McCord’s irritating children almost ruin the whole movie for me…

  42. Ok…WELCOME TO SUDDEN DEATH doesn’t the shit the bed…but it does snore occasionally and rip out a few loud farts. While Hyams was a master at making modest budgeted films look epic and expensive, Dallas Jackson sadly lacks similar chops and WELCOME…looks and feels every bit the low budget affair it is. Instead of Powers Boothe you get an actor I last saw playing the 3rd or 4th henchman in a Steve Austin flick called HUNT TO KILL as the main villain here. And not content with it’s basic DIE HARD premise, the movie also plunders other DIE HARD sequels for plot, with a goofy janitor who knows all the passageways and drives a buggy straight from DIE HARD 2 and the fearless, feisty and mouthy daughter from LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD.

    Thank God for MJW, who as always, never dials it in. No fight with a giant penguin sadly, but White does get to go toe to toe with his real life wife and dish out punishment far more frequently to the baddies than JCVD did in the original. Definitely not Larnell Stovall’s best work, but with productions of these budgets, I’d be surprised if he was given more than 2 days to put them together.

    Not a patch on the original, but thankfully also not COPS AND ROBBERS or UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2 awful.

  43. Jeezy crow, KayKay, are you joshin’ me? WELCOME TO SUDDEN DEATH is the worst MJW movie I’ve ever seen, and I saw SPAWN on the big screen. Absolutely the bottom of the barrel. Terrible direction, writing, lighting, editing, music (I like SOME hip-hop, at least, but every fight was scored to terrible hip-hop, in my opinion.), acting (MJW aside, of course, tho the writing did him no favors. And I guess I liked the little girl playing his daughter. She has definite potential, at the very least, going by what she did with the material.)…it’s all just a wash. I wonder if if MJW owed the director a favor, or maybe just needed to sod his lawn or something.

    If your movie is a ‘DIE HARD IN A…” movie and your comic relief sidekick explicitly points it out, referencing DIE HARD and Bruce Willis and actually saying “Yippee-Ki-Yay…” then I want to bop it on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and say “NO!” like the dumb puppy it is.

    That said, the comic relief sidekick was my second favorite part of the movie even if, as my roommate pointed out (based off of one line of dialogue, but not entirely off-base), Jason Mewes should have played that character.

    But I still had to watch another MJW movie, THE HARD WAY, afterwards, just to wash the taste of this crap outta my mouth. Especially since this version takes place at a basketball game where there IS no sudden death, so even the title makes no sense. I say avoid at all costs, even if it is a brisk 80 minutes.

  44. Hahahaha JEROME….Well, I hope my comment above made some effort at least to articulate that in no way do I consider this top-tier MJW, however I refuse to hang the “worst MJW” tag on WELCOME…. in a universe which also has dreck like COPS & ROBBERS, CHAIN OF COMMAND AND UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2 sitting in the White oeuvre (the same unfair universe that has White still slumming in bargain bin productions like this instead of headlining a John Wick-level franchise). Watch 10 mins of any of those and I guarantee it’ll re-baseline your definitions of “Terrible direction, writing, lighting, editing, music etc etc”

    And sometimes, it all boils down to your state of mind when you watch a film. It was a lazy Saturday, I was comfortably ensconced in my favorite arm chair, 4 beers in and feeling a nice buzz, checked out WELCOME…. and didn’t find it to be the train wreck I expected , but who knows, seen during another day and time, I would have been inclined to agree with you 100%.

    Conversely, I saw SUDDEN DEATH in the cinemas 25 years ago and thought it was 2 hours of white knuckle excitement. My most recent viewing had me thinking it could have done with some editing to tighten the pacing.

    At the very least WELCOME… is a merciful 80 minutes!

  45. Fair ’nuff, KayKay. I haven’t seen any of those ‘films’ you mentioned, so I can’t speak to that. And I hope I didn’t offend you. If anything, I was just completely appalled that MJW still has to do complete garbage like WELCOME… at this point in his career. It actually offends me.

    Speaking of WELCOME… Did you catch the mid-credits stinger? The most pathetic sequel-tease I have ever seen.

  46. Jerome, no offense taken.

    I’m equally saddened and pissed that MJW still has to slum in low grade fair when at the very least, we should be getting more movies like BLOOD & BONE, FALCON RISING & NEVER BACK DOWN, all 3 perfectly positioned to be great franchises for him. It was even publicized that FALCON would spawn (no pun intended) a series but that seems to have gotten nowhere either.

    And yeah I saw the mid-credits for WELCOME…and that did provide the movie’s single biggest laugh for me.

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