Replicant

Replicant stars Van Damme as a killer who is cloned by scientists so that the clone helps capture him.

Van Damme scores his best since Sudden Death in this better than average DTV movie. Ringo Lam delivers some great action scenes and explots Van Damme's physical ability to great affect making Replicant a good movie.

Overall Replicant would have been better if it wasn't so long but in anycase Replicant is a nice change of pace for the muscles from brussels. *** (Out of four)

Jean-Claude Van Damme sure believes in that adage of "the more Van Damme, the merrier". Also see "Maximum Risk" and "Double Impact" for examples of movies in which you got double the dose of Van Damme for your money. Here he plays both a sick serial killer, nicknamed The Torch, who has deep-seated mommy issues, and the result of a cutting-edge government program. This program creates genetic doubles of characters like The Torch for the purpose of getting inside their heads / memories / thought patterns. Or some such nonsense. The hard-driving former homicide detective put in charge of the child-like Replicant is grim-faced Jake Riley (Michael Rooker). Unsurprisingly, the Replicant has more of a sense of decency, so obviously he's not an *exact* copy of the psycho. Inevitably, the fight will be on.

Filmed in Canada, under the guidance of a capable director, Ringo Lam, who also worked with Van Damme on "Maximum Risk", this is rather routine entertainment, but it's watchable enough. Watching JCVD play these differing characters is basically fun, as it was in "Double Impact", and the martial arts / action icon clearly is enjoying himself as the psycho, decked out in greasy wig and leather jacket. Rooker typically adds some value with his usual patented coiled-spring intensity. The rest of the cast are so-so no-names, although Marnie Alton is delectable as your standard-issue "hooker with a heart of gold". JCVD fans need not fret, as you do get to see him strut his stuff in action and fight scenes, and it will create some amusement watching him attempt to delineate the mentally slow but good-hearted Replicant.

Overall, it's passable, although I'm sure it's far from Van Dammes' worst. It does go on for a bit (clocking in at 101 minutes), but there's still enough hard-edged violence and explosions to help combat short attention spans.

Six out of 10.

This was very different for a Van Damme movie. Even though this is like the 100th time Van Damme has done the double role thing, this is the best out of them. Van Damme really plays his roles well in this one. I don't really like Michael Rooker as an actor, but he does well with what he is given. Some of the characters are underdeveloped, but the movie still is decent.

I have to admit that "Replicant" succeeded in surprising me quite a few times, which is surprising itself since I wasn't ready for any surprise in a direct-to-video-van Damme-movie. But this movie is not like your average van Damme-stupidity. In some way this is good, in another way it is not.

What I was hoping for was 90 minutes of fun that makes me laugh very loud the way "Double Team" or "Streetfighter" managed to do. I was afraid of seeing 90 minutes of boring stupid action with only few unintentional laughs, like "The Quest" or "Knock Off". "Replicant" walks on a thin line between those extremes.

Well, it is the third movie in which van Damme appears in two roles at the same time and it is a strange record for an action star. At first we see the bad guy, a serial killer with long hair who kills mothers by killing and then burning them. He does this because his mother used to call him "bad boy" and once almost burned him alive. Michael Rooker plays the cop who tries to catch the killer and the movie sometimes suggests that the killer also plays the typical "serial killer-movie game", in which the killer seems to kill just for the cop who chases him. But this is just a sidenote in the film whereas it is a major point that Rooker is very obsessed in finding the killer. Where this obsession comes from is never explained and this contributes to a lot of the weird aspects of the film.

One day after Rooker again managed NOT to catch the killer some government guys approach him and make an interesting offer. They want to clone the killer and try to catch him with the memories of the real killer in the clone's brain (that's what I think is their plan). The way the "clone"-thing is introduced must be seen to be believed. We never get the feeling that the movie plays in the future and neither the science guys nor Rooker as the cop make a big deal of simply cloning another person for an investigation. When Rooker is told about the clone idea his reaction does not exist. He simply accepts not questioning for a mili-second what is going on. Even more strange is the fact that the government guys even think of trusting Rooker to take care of the clone. And for no reason at all Rooker uses this trust by deceiving them time after time, by refusing to cooperate but these "National Security" guys never mind at all. Neither do Rooker's relatives and partners who very very rarely wonder why he has a new pet and why it looks like the serial killer everyone's looking for?

It may seem strange to go into such deep plot discussions but the movie plays so seriously that it's hard not to do. That's the weird thing here: the film only scarcely tries to go for cheap effects and shortcuts. For a van Damme movie the action is very rare and except maybe two scenes not very spectacular.

And then there is van Damme's performance as the clone. The clone, who is never referred to with any name, seems like a mixture between a retard and Jackie Chan. He hardly speaks, looks bewildered and confused but can also swing himself around pipes a dozen times, jump around like a monkey and fight like a karate dog. I'm not quite sure where he has the fighting abilities from and why they developed so much better than his thinking abilities. To say the least, it is an interesting performance but it also produces some laughs especially because of the way Rooker treats him.

Rooker has the strangest character here, being obsessed with a case for no reason, cruel to the only person who can help him and sometimes very stupid. For example when he first hunts the killer and simply lets him drive away while dozens of policemen in police cars arrive and he simply doesn't mind telling them that the killer has just been around the corner one second ago.

There are a lot of strange things in this movie but most of them work somehow and make it actually very entertaining. An action scene with an ambulance is both ridiculous and effective. A scene with the clone spending time with a prostitute is not working at all and feels contrived and unnecessary. Some things are simply unexpected, for example the cruelty of the killer when he is not actually killing. He shoots innocent bystanders for no reason and in a scene in a hospital his violence becomes comic-like when he kicks nurses and hits wheelchair patients with the ambulance. In one scene Rooker has to throw his weapon away because he is threatened to get killed and for no reason he throws it in a bucket of blood. Later the clone has to fetch it out of there. And there is a scene in the killer's apartment that questions his motivation, the logic of computers and plot and the the abilities of the clone.

"Replicant" is a B-movie, that is for sure, but in an unexpected way it is a good one, entertaining, not too much over the top and somehow still convincing. Nevertheless the final scene gets a big laugh for its unbelievable silliness both in plot logic and music choice. And why we see that picture during the end credits is beyond me. Don't expect another "Double Team" but don't expect anything else.

I think there is a Zen of encountering movies, not unlike encountering people. You need to get beyond the fact that they are incompetent at carrying who they are and dig into the essence of the person.

Art is all in the carrying, I think so you might find yourself admiring something that is incompetent, unartful, even repellently stupid if it has an engaging heart.

This disaster of a movie has an interesting kernel I think. It is only a disaster because the director and support crew thought that its center was in the thud of flesh between two brutes, a simple serial killer and a simpler cop. But you the viewer have the power to relocate that center to the encounter with self.

(For those who don't know the story, evil killer exists. Shadowy federal agency makes a clone and lends it to the discalced cop who is on the case. The cone has "memories" that are used to track the killer. The clone "grows")

Set aside the bizarre notion of the US government fighting terrorists by making more of them from scratch. (Insert your own political commentary here.) And set aside the notion that memories convey by genetics. The cool idea here, something like in "Faceoff" or "Purple Rose" or "Last Action Hero," or even "Thirteenth Floor." is that a personal stumbling through life has his stumbles fabricated from blows from the world, but has the ability to see them from the outside.

Encountering self is an old idea... in film and literature, and much deeper and more clever notions have been spun than this. But this ain't bad, at least in theory. And for my taste Van Damme is no worse than Li or Arnie and unless you get a real actor everyone else is roughly as good.

If they could just have more Schrader and less Harlin.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.