Double Impact. Mmmmmm. Sounds like the title of a low budget, overly aggressive adult feature, filmed on a garbage skiff off the coast of Brazil doesn't it?

While that is more than likely the case, the Double Impact I am referring to is the 1991 classic starring the incredibly flexible and versatile Jean Claude Van Damme... which is somewhat hotter than it's South American equivalent that showcases a pair of sand whores depositing their own shit on one another... or perhaps not? I digress.

Nearly 20 years ago some Hollywood producer thought it would be a great idea to showcase the acting talent of one Jean Claude Van Damme by having him play two characters in the same film. Utilizing the Belgian superstar's well endowed thespian skills and coupling that with state of the art CGI, the masterpiece that became Double Impact was realized.

For Van Damme, Double Impact was clearly the apex of his career. After successfully displaying his his tight buttocks (shit I actually stuttered... and for the record Double Impact continues to embrace the policy of unnecessarily displaying a pair of Belgian glutes... a term we refer to as Van DAMN!... and Ryan your welcome for the nudy shot of JC... try to keep the little feller in yer pants) in Bloodsport, Cyborg, Kickboxer, and Lionheart (which for the most part are pretty kick ass movies... provided you aren't into any sort of story, plot, or character development), Van Damme was reaching a level of super-stardom shared only by action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Steven Seagal, and Emo Phillips.

The story of Double Impact is well... oh fuck it just watch this:

Ok got it? No? Okay, let me sum up. Chad and Alex Wagner (Van Damme, and Van Damme... by the way, how many times did the deep voice guy say Van Damme? ) are re-united in their late twenties by Uncle Frank, the former body guard of their parents, who failed to protect them from getting killed by the Chinese mafia following some shady business investments used to build a tunnel in Hong Kong. After the Wagners are executed by Zang (mafia guy) and Griffith (rich English douche) the twins are separated. The nurse maid drops Alex at a French orphanage and Uncle Frank takes Chad and raises him in France... which is a convenient way to explain Van Damme's truly mind boggling accent. By the way Zang, Griffith, and Uncle Frank don't seem to age even though some 30 years have passed.

After their reunion, Chad and Alex eventually join forces to take revenge on their parents murderers... a prerequisite plot device of any good action film. Their path of vengeance of course takes them through a cadre of subordinates and henchmen ranging from the one-punch-and-die foot soldier to the giant breasted Chinese guy (Van Damme re-unites with the marvelously thick-pec'd Bolo Yeung) which delivers unto us a cornucopia of fight scenes. Van Damme also gets to square off against a dude with knife tipped boots, former Miss Olympia Cory Everson (who for the record I've always had the hots for... perhaps because of her very masculine body... and her penis?) and a Steven Seagal stunt double.

The ending is beyond predictable, after wasting through the collection of bad-asses Chad and Alex make short work of Zang (tossed from the top of a crane) and Griffith (crushed under a shipping container), then hug it out, then Alex makes out with his hot girlfriend (who for the record has the worst breast implants i've ever seen) while Chad stands by uncomfortably close and gives them the thumbs up... and we freeze frame as if we just finished watching an episode of Magnum P.I.

To Van Damme's credit he does manage to create two distinct characters in Double Impact. One is a cultured, well-to-do, metro-sexual (borderline gay), and the other is an emotionless, street-hardened, bad-ass (also gay), both are skilled in the martial arts and neither of them can act. Really the main difference is that Chad smiles a lot and has poofy hair, while Alex frowns constantly and slicks his hair back. Chad enjoys pastels, while Alex prefers an all black wardrobe. Both love the cock.

Thankfully the CGI in this film does a masterful job of placing Van Damme next to himself in this movie. I'm completely bullshitting here. On the rare occasion they are together in a scene (where you see two distinct Van Dammes and not the back of some poor stunt double's skull), the shadows appear not only from different times of the day, but from different times of the year. And forget about trying to match up eye-lines... when they do attempt some kind of connection, Alex appears to be lazy-eye, and Chad can't stop staring at his twin brother's crotch. I exaggerate somewhat (but not really).

While Van Damme will always be considered a marginal (which is extraordinarily generous on my part) at best, he does manage to entertain regardless of the situation (except for JCVD... watching Jean Claude Van Damme attempt to act is like watching Jim Carey trying not to be funny - see the Number 23 STOP YOU MOTHER FUCKERS!!!) and Double Impact is no different.

Double Impact offers great fights scenes, full splits, well-oiled, meticulously toned ass cheeks, all mixed with your ability to severely suspend disbelief and you have nothing short of an Am-Track train wreck... I mean a gem of a movie experience.

You are probably thinking right now, 'Hey, didn't you guys already review Double Impact?' , and the answer is yes. The lovely and talented Ryan provided his thoughts on the Jean Claude Van Damme classic a few years back - which you can view here.

So why the re-review? I figured a quality bad movie like Double Impact is more than worthy of the extra attention.

I also thought it deserved a critique by someone who wasn't home schooled and didn't drop-out in the 9th grade to work on his pick-up truck.

Hamlin Grade: 6.5


Timothy Dalton is the one true James Bond,
pat

Posted by Patrick at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

"Only a ninja can kill a ninja."
-Sho Kosugi

Truer words have never been spoken. While it has been some two decades since the ninja has dominated the big screen (remember the 80's when every movie that came out either involved Ninja, or some gay Australian?). The ninja never really went out of fashion, (like cocaine, mullets and gay Australians did) but rather laid waiting for the time to once again take over Hollywood and whip out their fully engorged... swords.

That time is now my friends. I give you Ninja Assassin.

Ninja Assassin is the kind of movie that makes you want to yell out 'Fuck Yeah' every 2 - 7 minutes (which explains why I never saw the movie in it's entirety in the theater... asshole security dicks).

The story is simple, and elegant. We open with a group of gang members, clearly of the bad ass variety, preparing to whoop on an old tattoo artist... but prior to the commencement of said whooping, a gang member get's his head cut in half! Not off, mind you... IN HALF!!! So only the lower jaw remains attached, and the upper part of his skull lands with a plop ( think Bavarian style on a glass table) on the floor. This ninja continues to fillet the gang with his sword and a plethora of other sweet weapons. Chinese stars are tossed in this film as though they are being launched from a Gatling gun (or Richard Gere's colon) and victims struck by these are mercilessly shredded. Oh and for the record, no funds were spared on the blood pumps... there are few scenes in this film where crimson is not showering everywhere.

Okay, back to the tale... it is present day and ninja are now being utilized to dispatch prominent social figures... essentially assassins for hire as they were originally designed centuries ago in feudal Japan. On the case is a female police officer (it really doesn't matter who she or her partner is, because they are almost useless guides that takes us through this world of the ninja... as if we really needed them) who gets to close and draws the attention of the ninja and becomes a target herself.... however she also gains a protector in a ninja who has decided to break free of his programming and fight back (he officially gives his fuck you walking papers to his ninja clan atop a roof in the pouring rain via the help of a bicycle chain whip with a giant fish-hook attached to the end of it - the preferred weapon of this particular ninja) .

Let me explain what I mean by programming. You see, to make a good ninja, you must first kidnap a newborn Japanese child, then train him or her from that early age in a vast array of martial art techniques while simultaneously torturing the shit out of them until they reach adulthood. Then beat the shit out of them some more. Upon graduation from this college of mind fuck, the ninja are place within society unfurnished, air conditioned free, loft-styled apartments where they can train shirtless (for the record, the star ninja in this film is in bath house caliber shape, even for a man of Japanese descent.... as you know the chief export of Japan is great abs) all day long until they receive orders to go out and kill some people.

If you haven't had the urge to yell out expletives thus far then you are probably a homosexual.

Insert Final Battle which includes : Army of Ninjas, Army of Special Forces, all manner of weapons ranging from swords and throwing stars, to fully equipped tactical vehicles and military-grade ordinance, and a final showdown in the Octagon (complete with unnecessary flaming backdrop) between our ninja and the master ninja that trained (mind raped and beat the piss out of for a lifetime) him.

Ninja Assassin ends as it started... with a 'Fuck Yeah''. By the conclusion of this feature, I guarantee that not only will you be screaming the aforementioned battle cry, but you will also be holding your penis in your hands and vigorously masturbating. Women needn't concern themselves, because you aren't allowed to watch this movie anyway. Go back to the Notebook.

Fuck Yeah!

Hamlin Grade: 8


Timothy Dalton is the one true James Bond,
pat

Posted by Patrick at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

There are good ideas and then there are bad ideas. There are Baldwin brothers and then, well there's little Stevie Baldwin. One has to wonder what uber-liberal activist and older brother Alec must think about his younger and less talented brother's exploits (when he's not screaming at ex-wife Kim Bassinger or their daughter over the phone that is). Shit. Alec's no Michael Ironside but even he's had his moments like playing that fucked up surgeon in Malice or contributing an outstanding voiceover narration for The Royal Tannenbaums.

Forgive me for starting things off with a lengthy digression but I would be remiss not to take a few moments before getting into the meat of this review to discuss the antics of Stephen Baldwin and his fall from uh, semi-obscurity.

Times have been tough all around, so tough that apparently not even a stand-up fraud like Stephen has been able to make an um, honest living out of fleecing that most naive and impressionable of demographics: christian youth. Last year Stephen was forced to file for bankruptcy. Due to no fault of his own however. Those dastardly heathens in Hollywood have shut him out you see, "because of his convictions." That's right folks. The star of such classics as The Young Riders and Bio-Dome tossed out on his can like a filthy commoner.

But hark! There's a silver-lining here. No I'm not talking about that silly website set up for Stephen. By others. On his behalf. Asking people to give him money and citing the bible as an authority on why people should give their hard-earned money to the world's first self-proclaimed "Jesus-Psycho." I'm not talking about that website. Were it not for Stephen being ostracized from mainstream movies we wouldn't have gems such as the one I bring you now, Shark(s?) In Venice. And we need films like this. Those of you brave enough to call yourselves Bad Movie Knights know this to be true.

Sharks In Venice is a return to familiar territory for the man who gave us the greatest of all shark movies; that being Shark Attack 3: Megaladon. It would appear that Danny Lerner has a serious hard-on for sharks. This is the fifth shark-related film he's been involved with according to the internet movie database. No small feat indeed. Believe it or not it's not that easy to just keep churning out direct-to-dvd releases of horror movies about man-eating sharks. There's a certain art to it. It's not like the old days when you could just plop a giant shark into a resort community and have it go fin to toe with some grizzled old beach cop. No, you have to introduce new elements to the formula. And you need new blood... Bring on the Baldwin!

Let's begin shall we? Venice. Present day...(I guess?) After a rather beautiful establishing shot of the city we sink into the murky depths of the Venetian canals to find a couple of divers who, we will soon learn, are searching for the lost treasure of the Medici family. Now before I go on any further I'd like to point something out. I've been to Venice. I say this not to toot my own horn, but rather to bring up something of which I'm not sure everyone is aware. If you haven't heard by now there's no sewage system in Venice, at least not in the sense that we're used to. So where does all of that human waste go when it's been flushed? You guessed it. Walk over any bridge in Venice in the summer time and it's like taking a field trip to your local sewage plant. I say all this to say that those two divers in the opening (and later Stephen Baldwin and friends including that pesky great white shark) will be swimming in 100% poo-poo water. Fitting on so many levels.

Anyhow these two divers are soon ambushed and divoured by a hungry shark. Cut to David Franks played by Stephen Baldwin. Franks is a professor at the Oceanographic Institute in San Francisco (a very believable part for Stephen I think) and after some ominous foreshadowing during one of his lectures he learns that his father has apparently had a "boating accident" in Venice. Setting forth immediately with his loyal and moderately attractive girlfriend Laura (played by Vanessa Johansson. Yes Scarlett's sister and no, nowhere near as close in uh "acting ability") on a quest to find out what's become of his father, David will be plunged...not only into the poop soup, but also into the shady world of the Venetian mafia and the corrupt police department that enables it.

Now I'm not gonna run through the entire story or point out the many confusing plot elements or holes in said plot. That's punishing enough when you're actually watching the movie. Suffice it to say that the film cannibalizes a few sci-fi/action classics in a pitiful attempt to win over the audience. We get the usual cliches from just about every shark movie ever made. (The whole "don't mention that we may have a killer shark to the public" admonition given to Franks/Baldwin by the chief of police for instance) Also for some reason we get a weak attempt at a Raiders of the Lost Ark ripoff as Baldwin navigates a series of booby-traps to gain access to the Medici treasure and elude those filthy Italian gangsters. Simply put the movie uses the killer shark m.o. and just slaps it in a different setting with a Mafia element thrown in for good measure and a has-been (I guess Stephen Baldwin "was" at some point?) actor as the protagonist. If this weren't bad enough Lerner even goes so far as to use cuts from his previous shark films. There's one scene in particular where you can actually see the head of the baby megalodon from Shark Attack 3 plowing through the hull of the ship which was in itself a blatant plagiarism of the Jaws climax. And it occurs during a scene where THERE IS NO BOAT INVOLVED WHATSOEVER. Great editing there guys.

As for the acting we have a few mailed-in performance from Baldwin as well as Johansson, who I guess got a spot in the movie because the producers thought we'd be turned on by name-association? (Pity her tits aren't as big as Stephen's or this might actually work on some subconscious level) The movie comes to a merciful conclusion with an unspectacular shootout between the mobsters and cops and Stephin Baldwin in a fight with--yada yada who cares? Does it really matter? The important thing to remember is Stephen needs our help folks. And I for one am not gonna stand by and do nothing while a good man like him suffers!

Am I gonna send him money? Fuck no! But I will bestow upon him something money can't buy. An extra Hamlin. It's the least we can do for him.

Hamlin Grade: 7


Everything you ever loved will be sodomized by Michael Bay,
Joey

Posted by Patrick at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)