REPLICANT is the second of three collaborations between director Ringo Lam (FULL CONTACT) and star Jean-Claude Van Damme. The first was the theatrically released MAXIMUM RISK (1996), then this came out in 2001, then IN HELL in 2003. I’m pretty sure I watched this when it first came out and thought it was boring, but I’m a different person now. A replicant of what I was before. Or just older, I guess. But the difference is that now I’m much more appreciative of JCVD the adventurous character actor, and this is one where that side of him really shines.
MAXIMUM RISK gave him a dual role, but not at once – he was a guy who dies at the beginning, then he plays his twin. In this one he plays both the antagonist and one of the protagonists, and they’re both fun characters for him to play. (read the rest of this shit…)
When I first encountered the trailer for INFINITY POOL I spotted Mia Goth, who gave one of my favorite performances last year in PEARL, so I knew I would be seeing it. Then I noticed Alexander Skarsgård, star of one of my other favorite 2022 movies, THE NORTHMAN. And at the end I learned it was the new one from writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, whose 2020 film POSSESSOR really knocked me on my ass, so this was a first show opening day kind of deal for me. And it lived up to my hopes.
It’s the story of novelist James Foster (Skarsgård, 13, BATTLESHIP, THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, GODZILLA VS. KONG) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman, STEP UP REVOLUTION, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON) on vacation at a resort in the exotic foreign land of Latoka. It’s a beautiful place on the sea, but it’s creepy – fenced off with guards, tourists aren’t allowed to leave, so the closest thing to visiting the locals is going to restaurants in the resort’s fake downtown area. James is already thinking he was an idiot to believe this trip could break his six year lack of inspiration since publishing his one obscure and poorly reviewed novel. (read the rest of this shit…)
DUAL is the latest from writer/director Riley Stearns, which came to disc this week. I checked it out because I really Iiked his last one, THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE, which stars Jesse Eisenberg as a “35 year old dog owner” who takes up karate after being assaulted, but is not remotely the movie I’d picture when hearing that description. At the end of my review I wrote, “I really like the feel he has here – a barren, generic town, people who speak oddly, an undercurrent of danger as this strange black comedy kind of turns into a thriller. It’s very unique.”
That sounds quite a bit like this one too, despite entirely different subject matter. DUAL is about clones and is set in a casually dystopian near future (or present?), so it’s technically a sci-fi movie, but it feels like it could be the same world as the previous one. It’s got the same sort of deadpan strangeness, plainness and bone-dry, bleak humor. There’s even some combat training that takes place in a room that might as well be one of the dojos in that movie. I wondered if Stearns ever considered using Allesandro Nivola’s asshole sensei character as the trainer, then I read that Eisenberg was announced as a cast member at one point, so maybe it would’ve been him. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE ISLAND I guess was Michael Bay’s big failure. He held his head high during his public shaming as the asshole who directed PEARL HARBOR, but this time he hit the type of bump that means more to him: he made a movie that didn’t make very much money. In the U.S. I guess it only made $36 million, which would be enough for his monthly Lamborghini allowance but doesn’t even cover a third of the shooting budget. For comparison, PEARL HARBOR made $75 million on its opening weekend.
Of course I’m coming to it eight years and three TRANSFORMERSes later having heard of its growing reputation as Michael Bay’s Not As Bad Movie. So when I was looking for a dumb summer blockbuster to get me in a summer movie mood it leapt off the video store shelf into my cold, reluctant embrace. (read the rest of this shit…)
I guess when THE 6TH DAY came out I was less loyal to Schwarzenegger than I am now. I thought it looked shitty, so I skipped it. And I kinda forgot I never watched it. But now I feel bad that nobody’s going to see the new Schwarzenegger and Stallone movies in theaters so I wanted to show my appreciation for their works by watching a movie from each of them that I skipped before.
With these low expectations THE 6TH DAY worked out well. It’s enjoyable lesser Arnold, clearly better than COLLATERAL DAMAGE and arguably more consistent than ERASER or END OF DAYS. It takes place in “the near future – sooner than you think,” when cloning is a thing. Cloning humans is illegal, but Re-Pets (clones of your dead pets that you can buy) are popular and Dr. Griffin Weir (Robert Duvall) has made strides in cloning human organs for transplants, though not without protest. (read the rest of this shit…)
SHADOW FURY is a cheap-ass 2001 sci-fi action movie about clones. It has one of those inexcusable keyboard-pretending-to-be-an-orchestra scores and the acting and dialogue are at higher cheesiness levels than I’ll usually put up with, i.e. worse than a SCANNERS sequel. But I really liked this movie because it rarely goes more than a couple minutes without a really cool action scene, a clever concept or a (usually unintentional) laugh. It has a similar energy to an early Isaac Florentine, so it fits that the director, Makoto Yokoyama, did second unit and stunts for the Power Rangers. An IMDb search finds 7 specific episodes directed by Florentine with Yokoyama on 2nd unit. So let’s call him the 2nd unit Florentine. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
MaggieMayPie on Trigger Warning: “I watched this the weekend that REBEL RIDGE came out. I went into Netflix to watch that and I saw…” Nov 20, 20:46
Matthew B. on Trigger Warning: “Anyone get the feeling that large chunks of act three went missing here? The big confrontation with Anthony Michael Hall,…” Nov 20, 18:24
Felix Ng on Trigger Warning: “I thought this was okay as well. Like an early 2000 Van Damme DTV.” Nov 20, 13:49
Skani on Dragged Across Concrete: “Yeah, this fucking guy’s a real trip. Sounds like his words “engendered” a lot of feelings, and I won’t even…” Nov 20, 13:04
Mr. Majestyk on Dragged Across Concrete: “That’s the sad part. All the ingredients are there for something great, but Zahler’s technique just pisses it all away…” Nov 20, 12:54
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Majestyk – I salute you for making it to the end to confirm that the entire runtime earns your contempt,…” Nov 20, 12:34
Mr. Majestyk on Le Samourai: “I want to thank everybody for the kind words. Sometimes I doubt my role in this ecosystem, as it seems…” Nov 20, 12:04
Mr. Majestyk on Dragged Across Concrete: “Sing it, Crudnasty. This remains my least favorite movie of the 21st century. Possibly of all time. I literally sold…” Nov 20, 11:51
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Benefit of the doctor = benefit of the doubt Apologies for the consequences of my furious swipe texting, but this…” Nov 20, 11:34
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Just started watching this on a whim, based on seeing the comments pop up and having seen Cell Block 99…” Nov 20, 11:32
Skani on Dragged Across Concrete: “I defended the movie at the time, but I do think Zahler is a weird dude, and I think Mel…” Nov 20, 10:24
CJ Holden on Trigger Warning: “When it came out, I joked on social media about this being actually a standup comedy special in which Jessica…” Nov 20, 10:13
Ishmael on Ebirah, Horror of the Deep: “One thing that always amuses me about Godzilla movies is how often between films people lose track of Godzilla. The…” Nov 20, 09:19
VERN on Dragged Across Concrete: “Both the violence and the racism depicted in the movie are fictional. I did not feel it was committing acts…” Nov 20, 09:15
REPLICANT is the second of three collaborations between director Ringo Lam (FULL CONTACT) and star Jean-Claude Van Damme. The first was the theatrically released MAXIMUM RISK (1996), then this came out in 2001, then IN HELL in 2003. I’m pretty sure I watched this when it first came out and thought it was boring, but I’m a different person now. A replicant of what I was before. Or just older, I guess. But the difference is that now I’m much more appreciative of JCVD the adventurous character actor, and this is one where that side of him really shines.
When I first encountered the trailer for INFINITY POOL I spotted Mia Goth, who gave one of my favorite performances last year in 
DUAL is the latest from writer/director Riley Stearns, which came to disc this week. I checked it out because I really Iiked his last one, 
THE ISLAND I guess was Michael Bay’s big failure. He held his head high during his public shaming as the asshole who directed PEARL HARBOR, but this time he hit the type of bump that means more to him: he made a movie that didn’t make very much money. In the U.S. I guess it only made $36 million, which would be enough for his monthly Lamborghini allowance but doesn’t even cover a third of the shooting budget. For comparison, PEARL HARBOR made $75 million on its opening weekend.
I guess when THE 6TH DAY came out I was less loyal to Schwarzenegger than I am now. I thought it looked shitty, so I skipped it. And I kinda forgot I never watched it. But now I feel bad that nobody’s going to see the new Schwarzenegger and Stallone movies in theaters so I wanted to show my appreciation for their works by watching a movie from each of them that I skipped before.
