A Irmandade

It's with great joy I watched THE ORDER. Easily Jean-Claude Van Damme's best film since Universal Soldier (1992). The author Les Weldon also wrote Replicant (2001), where he also uses lots of clichés, but in this film they work much better. The direction of The Order (by Sheldon Lettich) is very nice, but some is lost in the very uneven editing. The main low-point of this film is the music, which is awful as best and extremely annoying at worst.

Fight scenes are few, but good, and it seems that Van Damme has tried to get more Jackie Chan looking feeling to this film than he is used too. There are plenty of rip-offs from both Indiana Jones-movies and Project A II (by Jackie Chan, 1987).

The plot is about an ancient Order with converted muslims, christians and jews. And this is not such a bad idea for a film. The Order is not all-bad, but the bad guys of course have the top-positions, trying to use the Order for their purposes.

This time Van Damme isn't such a brilliant guy as we are used to see him. On the contrary, he is actually portraid as a bit stupid, and sometimes even unlucky. This is very nice, since the co-stars - Charlton Heston and Sofia Milos - gets a chance to shine, which is rare in these kind of films.

This is also perhaps one of the more down-to-earth movies Van Damme made lately, and it has a really good setting and use of locations. Overall, this is an interesting and very good movie which I truly enjoyed watching. And as I said, this is perhaps his best movie since Universal Soldier, and I actually place it as the number 3 movie of all Van Damme's work.

I truly hope that a sequel comes out of this one, since they really put it that way in the ending! :-)

Great work - if you like Van Damme, you can't go wrong with this one!

This movie is an action comedy. I don't it really was supposed to be a serious action movie. Most people criticize the movie, claiming that it didn't deliver and the fact that it wasn't one of Van Damme's worst movie. In respect to the movie, it is a action comedy in a lighter aspect. I admit though, the movie did have its flaws, and some of van damme's dialogue was too simplistic and cheesy. However, the had its moments, and van damme is still in top shape. I also liked how Van Damme used some of his old co-stars from previous movies (The Quest, Cyborg). Overall, this movie should satisfy any van damme fan. This movie could've produce a lot more, and the Charlton Heston character was unnecessary.

Final Judgement: **1/2/****

This is got to be the best (van)damn movie EVER... if not the GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE!

Not since the likes of "Evil Dead 2" has a movie of this caliber been unleashed upon the unsuspecting horde of mankind!!!

It is so ridiculous, it goes all the way around the quality circle and hits 'awesome'!

But you just have to see it to believe it.

I love half second shots of their faces during the car chase scene, van Damme kicking EVERYONE in the movie(and i mean EVERYONE! not a single human being in this movie is spared from van Damme's kung fu FURY!!!), van Damme using his martial arts to get whatever he wants, the fight scene in the shallow fountain, the shot of the gun landing in the produce, Charelton Heston, the sexy cop who always ran around with her long lucious hair down and her shirt 3 buttons open (yum!), Rudy (van Damme's character) always giving his dad a "high five!", the music (oh God, the music)...

The list goes on... Its endless!

Simply put, this movie is a cinematic masterpiece. The director is a brilliant man with a keen and precise sense of the celluloid artform, as you will see with each perfectly timed and precisely angled shot that creates the awesomeness that is "The Order".

You have to see it to believe it.

My review: 9/10 Go watch it!

I needed a DVD to test out whether the DVD reader in a laptop I was fixing was working, so I grabbed "The Order" out of a pile my father had left me to use. As I was playing the disc, I got hooked. I agree with the consensus of previous reviewers before me. This movie is nothing special, with thin plot, thin characters, and low-budget sets (when they're not using real locations). But what the movie has going for it is spectacular scenery, compliments of the Holy Land, decent chase scenes and stunts, and a very appealing Van Damme, probably at his most relaxed and confident. If you see it playing anywhere on cable, be sure to check it out. It's not cerebral, but it's entertaining and watchable (and short).

Well, I'm a fan of Van Damme & always will be. I rented this 1 after really enjoying REPLICANT, which was Van Damme's darkest film. I'll be buying this when it comes to buy on video. The action scenes with Van Damme were good, its great 2 see him in action again. I was happy when Van Damme did his helicopter kick in a fight in the end. It also was cool 2 see the big Mongolian guy from THE QUEST in this 1 & that bad guy from DOUBLE IMPACT with the ninja-star shoes. But I will complain about that the movie was edited badly at several parts. & the big bomb explosion was quite fake due 2 stupid CGI. & Van Damme trying 2 b funny at times was kind of a dumb idea. Overall this film was good but not great like his earlier films. Its decent effort. S. Lettich directed this, but LIONHEART & DOUBLE IMPACT were better films.