Rating: 3.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2024 | 12/52 | Jean-Claude Van Damme
Quinn, Jack. Your final assignment is classification red. At 3:05 PM, Greenwich Mean Time, a truck loaded with 32 kilograms of nonactive plutonium was stolen from a secured US nuclear installation outside Croatia. We believe Stavros and his organization will sell it to the Iraqis within 24 hours. Your objective is to make sure the plutonium is returned safely to our base.
Jack, dressed in all black, walks through an empty warehouse. At the other end are stacked barrels and construction equipment. Jack pulls the plastic tarps off of the XRT and starts up a satellite tracker inside.
He bursts through the slide doors, crushing the six cars in the parking lot as the XRT bounces over them and rushes for the border. He breaks through military trucks, everything exploding at the slightest touch.
Tanks, motorcycles, and tankers all chase down the XRT. A train is coming down the train tracks. The XRT won’t make it, so Jack pulls back and ollies the XRT over and through the train, escaping the military convoy.
We presume his job is complete, and Jack can retire.
But three years later, while living in the south of France with the pregnant Katheryn, Jack gets a visit from the old team. They need him for one more job. Stavros is back, and they want him alive. Jack can’t truly retire until Stavros does.
But Jack won’t be able to do it alone. He’ll need the help of Yaz, an eccentric arms dealer — a kinky Q with all the spy gear and friendship he needs.
God, this cartoon action movie is so over-the-top. I was laughing through so much of this. It’s all action cliches, saturated and mainlined. We also get some dopey sci-fi concepts.
Van Damme keeps his muscles out and oiled as much as possible, and god bless him.
The homoeroticism is not subtext — Van Damme is embracing his then-beloved status in the gay community. Unfortunately, he became virulently homophobic in more recent years.
Dennis Rodman has been an LGBTQ+ alley for years, so he leans into that undefined sexuality in his performance.
Mickey Rourke had started tanking his career by getting awful plastic surgery. He still looks somewhat like himself, but it’s clear that the camera does not want to look at him for too long and confuse the audience.
I would compare this to The Fifth Element — both aren’t good movies but make up for it in fun. Also, both films are “for the gays.”
Somehow, Rodman made the best movie starring a Chicago Bull in the 90s.
** Stray Thoughts / Spoilers **
- Like something from The Heroic Trio, Stavros is after babies or something.
- Van Damme and Rodman make so many basketball puns.
- He creates a Rube Goldberg device, complete with his peeled-off thumbprint
- Van Damme’s disguise to blend with the generic goth/punk/Rodmanites is so good! His hottest look by far.
- So many flying birds! What in the name of John Woo?
- Dennis Rodman has brothers — Italian cybermonks!!
- The explosion in the Colosseum.
- The house music in the closing credits