Ralph's Movie Reviews: JCVD

Thursday, December 4, 2008

JCVD

Crime\drama
With English subtitles as required

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Jean-Claude Van Damme: JCVD, famous martial arts movie actor
Francois Damiens: Detective Bruges
Herve Sogne: Lt. Smith
Karim Belkhadra: Vigile, leader of the bad guys
Norbert Rutili: his partner Perthier

REVIEW
Fans of Jean-Claude Van Damme, better known as “the Muscles from Brussels”, will no doubt be absolutely thrilled to see their hero playing a more serious role. The rest of us probably could care less.

It seems the producers have thrown out the book on how to make a decent movie. The washed out colours, primarily a yellowish sepia, set a dreary tone as well as being downright boring. Perhaps to offset that the use of strong overhead lighting creates bright over-exposed areas. Weird.

Instead of sticking with a traditional linear time frame after seeing a snippet of action we are then taken back to some minutes before the action began to view again the first scene in its entirety plus a little bit beyond. Then the process is repeated. Weird.

Midway through the movie JCVD launches into a long monologue about his failing career, talking directly at the camera while somehow perched way above the others. It is entirely out of place and has no connection with what is going on below. Weird.

for language and some violence.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.