"Derailed"

[Steven Millan]

             Jean Claude Van Damme's new movie starts out pretty good,with a fiery explosion in the Czech courtyard,with cars and buses expldoing all over the place,but once he and that karate kicking lady spy get aboard their train,and the terrorists,led by a czech John Malkovich lookalike,start holding evryone hostage,and spread a biological virus aboard the tarin,the movie then quickly goes downhill....
           Myself and my cousin Brian hysterically laughed at every badly done Toho Studios-style model train mock-up bluescreen Fx,which were the worst since 1990's "Moontrap"(Walter Koenig and Bruce Campbell meet killer chessy looking alien robots).
              With both of his soon-to-film movies "The Tower" and "After Death"(the latter with Ringo Lam directing),Van Damme seriously needs to get his priories straight,if he wants to return to the big theatrical screen,before he end up hanging with Warwick Davis in the next "Leprechaun" movie(that's where his career seems to be soon headed).
          And,oh yeah:Van Damme's son Kristopher(playing his son)isn't given much to do,but lay around,and be sick(a throw two karate kicks in the process).

[Squishy]

Say, Steve, you didn't write one of the reviews for "Derailed" at the IMDB, did you? If not, yours is not the only mention of the "Toho Train." ...Which makes it a must-see in my book!

...As does the sadly-appropriate title, shades of Irwin Allen's "When Time Ran Out." Van Damme's pretty much done, it seems. Steven Segal has attempted to jump-start his career, but now he's stuck as the CO-star of Hollywood's lesser projects. JCVD can kick, he can even act if he tries really, really hard, but barring a miracle he's made way too many plop-plops to salvage himself now.

[Squishy]

Me bad, me spelled it "Segal," not Seagal. Apologies to Katey, my favorite one-eyed purple-haired starship cap'n.

Also, of note to bad-movie buffs, "Derailed" is directed by Bob Misiorowski, who also helmed Casper Van Dien's (God! These names!! Does EVERYONE have VD?) "Shark Attack." Fairly warned be ye, says I.

[Squishy]

Okay, okay, one more. Sorry.

Check JCVD's listing at the IMDB. They don't have listings for "The Tower" or "After Death" under his name, but you WILL find "Abominable" (JCVD vs Bigfoot!! Ha ha ha ha ha! Calling Steve Austin!) and "The Monk." You MUST see the publicity shot from "The Monk."

...The horror. The horror.

[Steven Millan]

                        Squishy,I wasn't the writer of any of "Derailed" 's IMDB reviews,but thanks for pointing out the history of that film's director.
                        Both "Abominable" and "The Monk" were planned Van Damme movies,as was "Hell"(a "Death Warrant"/"Bloodsport" type movie),but they were seemingly canned.
                      It'll be no time when Van Damme teams up with an up-and-coming rapper to jump start his theatrical movie career into full resurrection.

[Dano]

Did you ever notice that whenever Schwarzeneggar is in a movie playing an American spy, soldier, cop, fireman, etc., we just accept his German accent with no explanation whatsoever?  And in all the Van Damme movies where Jean-Claude plays an American, they always have to toss in some throw-away line about him being a Louisiana-Cajun to justify the French accent?  

He just never managed to cross that line where we would say "A Navy SEAL with a French accent -- makes sense."

Just a little quote from JCVD I saw in a magazine once and committed to memory (I swear this is word for word accurate):  "I have a very nice butt.  It's like a horse butt.  It is very powerful for an audience to see a nice butt."  See?  This guy was just never A-list action hero material.