mikesblast

First off, I am a HUGE Van Damme fan and I enjoyed the two other JCVD/Barbarash collaborations. That being said, this movie was absolutely AWFUL. Every bad element a movie can possess, this movie pretty much has. Bad green screen, bad script, horrible fight/action sequences, bad acting(somewhat excluding JCVD), doubling for every other punch thrown, hell even doubling for scenes of JC sitting on a couch!! This was such a waste of a fun premise. They tried to throw in WAY too much tacky drama instead of just going balls to the wall with action and violence. I guess though, since it wasn't Van Damme in most of the scenes, that wouldn't have made a difference. This may even give that cluster of turds he did in the early 2000's(Derailed, The Order, Second in Command, etc) a run for their money as worst Van Damme movie ever. Such a disappointment. Good luck viewers!

Watched it last night. Bit of a mixed bag for me. First off, the movie looked great. It felt 110% like a theatrical movie. Also, the cast was really likable. The main problem was that it just wasn't that funny. A lot of the humor just tries way too hard and winds up coming off like a 12 year old wrote it. Also, everything seemed to happen way too fast. It felt like they were only on the island for like 5 minutes then all of a sudden, everything goes to hell. There are a few subtle funny moments which are the ones that are most likely to make you laugh. JC again, is the highlight of the movie. I was worried that he was gonna try way too hard to be funny but I thought he did a good job. All in all though, it's decent but not great. It definitely needed some help in the writing department. I'll still be picking it up on blu for my collection and for the special features. Definitely enjoyed Enemies Closer more than this one though. 2.75/5

Finally watched this. I enjoyed it. The highlight is easily JC's performance, which is one of his best in my opinion. His villain is so wacky and over the top...almost like he was channeling Klaus Kinski or something. Another plus the movie had going for it was the pacing. Once it gets going, it doesn't slow down at all. It almost goes by too fast since it's only 85 minutes. Something I was kind of surprised with was how much JC was actually in it. I mean, this felt like a Van Damme movie! Not just a minute of screen time here and there. He 100% felt like the lead to me. I didn't mind Tom Everett Scott at all. Yeah, his character was a bit of a pussy and he isn't the first actor you would think of for an action role but it was just nice seeing a familiar Hollywood face...and acting wise, I thought he was fine. I would take him as a co star any day of the week over a Randy Couture type. Same goes for Orlando Jones. Everyone else, with the exception of the old guy that lived in the cabin, is a typical generic JCVD direct-to-video co star.

Production wise, I really liked the night time shooting. It hid the tiny budget pretty damn well and it just looked cool in general, I thought. The movie did have a few flaws that were annoying. For starters, Kris Van Varenberg was completely miscast and unconvincing as usual and every time that Linzey Cocker opened her mouth I wanted to hang myself! Also, some of the doubling was overly visible in some shots which is always irritating.

Overall, it may have been a bit of a let down considering that Peter Hyams gave us two of JC's best, but Enemies Closer is still WORLDS better than most other recent JCVD movies. It's a fun little action flick and I could easily re-watch it. 3.25/5