Post by ronnierocketago on Aug 4, 2009 14:32:47 GMT
"Is this supposed to make my dick bigger?"[/i][/size]
DOUBLE IMPACT (1991) - **
Once upon a time in British-ruled Hong Kong, an American couple needed money to finish some public works project, so they made the stupid mistake of borrowing cash from the Triads. Trust me, that never ends well for anyone. They get assassinated, and their twin infant sons are split up to ensure their safety. One sent by the nanny to a local Catholic orphanage, the other by body guard Geoffrey Lewis (dad of Juliette) who raises him as his own son in France but later Hollywood.
This explains why one has a Franco accent. The other? Not so much, unless those nuns were French. Or maybe French ex-pats or tourists adopted him at one point?. I don't know, and the movie certainly doesn't care. Viva La France! Seperated by thousands of miles and an ocean, one becomes a smuggler, the other a gym instructor. Yet incredibly both Jean Claude Van Dammes still grow up to become martial artists. 25 years after their parents' death, they meet up in Hong Kong. Comedy from personality conflicts and mistaken identity ensues, and oh yeah they seek revenge. Times two!!!*
I guess this is like MANIAC COP or OUTLAND. If that plot above doesn't intrigue you, then my review won't change your mind. This might actually be true for once, for this should have been retitled NO IMPACT. The big marketing sell was of course the (expensive) appliance of split-screen technology, developed by ILM and used with great effect in those BACK TO THE FUTURE sequels where both Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd could on the same unbroken shot interact with other characters played by them. Well someone got the bright idea to combine this brand spanking new FX with the Muscles from Brussels. I guess better Van Damme than Steven Seagal or Sylvester Stallone. I was going to mention Arnold Schwarzenegger, then I remembered his own double duty THE 6TH DAY, which was so lame its partly why he switched careers.
Hell Jackie Chan himself did a movie with the same story in TWIN DRAGONS, and while it's quite a flawed effort of his (the nice way of putting it), at least he tried to milk the gimmick for all it's worth...and succeeded. What I'm trying to say is that the IMPACT filmmakers, including veteran Van Damme director Sheldon Lettich (LIONHEART), sure put forth alot of effort into showing off the technology with numerous scenes where the double Van Dammes interact and (mostly) curse each other out. We even get a fight scene between "them." So we get tons and tons of kicking, bullets, and bare buttocks, or your typical Van Damme actioneer.
Except everyone involved kinda forgot something. Like the screenplay. I think they honestly forgot all about it, assuming someone had penned the damn thing already. When reality punched them in the face, they cranked something half-assed out at the last minute. An international $20 million heavy FX action production shot on location in Hong Kong with a nickel script. Now you don't necessarily need a THE DEER HUNTER quality script to produce satisfying action cinema. Heck you don't even necessarily need well-developed characters. Consider those early Andrew Davis efforts like CODE OF SILENCE and ABOVE THE LAW, where there is just enough pulp story to fuel the adrenaline and desperation behind the hero's struggle against the bigger and badder enemy. In other words, he gave good excuses for fight scenes.
Or for that matter, you don't necessarily even need well-developed characters (or story) to pull off a good action picture. Chan proves that consistently. But people watch Chan his ridiculously classical choreographed sequences that defies physics and mocks computers. Tell me what impresses you more, all that expensive boring CGI in TRANSFORMERS 2, or Chan jumping across a street from roof to a balcony without a safety net in RUMBLE IN THE BRONX? Fuck you microchip.
DOUBLE IMPACT is incredibly boring, featuring your bland uninspired run-of-the-mill martial arts choreography you would have expected from Hollywood action cinema in the years before John Woo and THE MATRIX. I'm quite dulled by the sincere lack of thought put into DOUBLE IMPACT's story, characters, and dialogue. Even for Van Damme standards, this is appallingly emptyheaded. Guess what? We have a finale which takes place on a boat in the docks, and fights involve steel barrels and crate boxes. You heard my eyes roll? The only sign of effort by IMPACT is having the Hollywood Van Damme occasionally act like your stereotypical Californian prissy wussy bitch (like not know how to use a gun), or Criminal Van Damme sport a Pat Riley hairstyle grease job. Hey movie, these are details, not personalities. Details do not equal personalities.
Consider that whole scene where crook Van Damme gets drunk and (for some reason) thinks his brother is banging his girlfriend. Why? Otherwise there would be no reason for the twins to randomly split up from each other and the hideout the heroes are using, not there when the bad guys storm and kidnap. Silly me and my brain.
I mean what actor wouldn't relish the chance to play two completely different, polarizing characters? Even in something like DOUBLE IMPACT, you could have done something. Imagine if Hollywood Van Damme was a master of all those martial arts styles ("dance fighting"), while Criminal Van Damme is more a brutal street brawler who uses his environment (and objects) to fight dirty like Chan. Each method has its advantages and weaknesses, but together they are a lethal kickass combination. Holy shit, I just put more thought into this than the paid writers did.
Though to be fair, I could argue that even if someone (me?) had tried to make the best of DOUBLE IMPACT's gimmick, we still have to deal with the problem that Van Damme isn't an actor. Then you see his recent acclaimed "comeback" meta-autobiographical JCVD, where he acts his ass off. He'll never win an Oscar (neither did Richard Burton), but trust me he'll impress you. But that still doesn't help DOUBLE, where partly his fault or not, he basically plays himself twice, instead of two completely different people. And there is his decent direct-to-video entry REPLICANT, where Van Damme returns to the duplicate plot device and there is a point to the gimmick.
I guess the only good thing I can say about IMPACT is the baddie henchman Bolo Yeung. Martial arts nerds remember him as memorable performance as Bolo (how creative) in the genre masterpiece ENTER THE DRAGON. Also he was the adversary champion that Van Damme defeats to win the tournament in his breakout hit/cult classic BLOODSPORT. So I guess the joke here is the Yeung character from BLOODSPORT getting some sort of revenge on Van Damme for losing his belt. He even has a nice moment where for once during one of Van Damme's ridiculous high kicks, Bolo punches him in the balls. But otherwise his character should be named Scar, because we only know him by a scar that Lewis gave him decades ago.
Otherwise, to highlight why DOUBLE IMPACT isn't worth the time or money or cinemaphiles and even action nerds, consider this scene where the unnamed villainess is implied to have groped the girlfriend of one of the Van Damme guys (does it matter which?) I usually treasure such implied lesbian innuendo in action pictures. In fact that might be the only reason to bother with THE PHANTOM with Catherine Zeta-Jones trying her damn best to get into the pants of Kristy Swanson. That ending subtly suggests that she does prevail. But with DOUBLE IMPACT...I don't care. Like almost everything else in DOUBLE, I never give a shit about the characters, the stakes, the fights. Never ever.
Also, the corporate villain in DOUBLE makes the classic mistake: If you don't want anyone to find incriminating documentation of your illegal misdeeds, then shred those papers. Don't assume that no random secretary will just happen to snoop around for them one day because she's banging one of the Van Dammes. Come on, follow the lead of Enron and Oliver North. Who knows, by sheer bad luck, you might lose everything and die a nasty death because you didn't invest in a paper shredder.
As other action fans can tell you, you accept alot of ridiculous shit. Everyone has a different threshold, so I'm not shocked if you read that premise and well laughed. I did too, but hey if you think about it, many great actioneers like ROBOCOP have an idiotic concept too. The difference is in the execution, and DOUBLE IMPACT got the firing squad.
*=Now if you want two Van Dammes for the price of one, there is that four-movies combo pack at Wal-Mart. For $13, you get his HARD TARGET (John Woo's American debut) and SUDDEN DEATH, Peter Hyams' really fun DIE HARD knock-off. For bonus you get the alright LIONHEART and THE QUEST, Van Damme's directorial effort. And for a good reason. If $13 is too much, there is another DVD, a double feature for $9 of BLOODSPORT and the other Hyams/Van Damme collaboration, TIMECOP, so far his biggest box-office hit. Back when theatres played his pictures.