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Replicant

Replicant

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Double Van Damme...
Review: "Replicant" offers a twist, on the standard cop chasing a killer story, attempting to use insight provided by the murderer's genetic clone, to track down the killer. Jean-Claude Van Damme has dual roles as the serial killer, and also as his clone, "Replicant". Michael Rooker is the ex-cop who comes out of "retirement" to attempt to train Replicant, and see if he can lead him to the killer.

Traumatized as a child by his mother, Luc Sevard has become a serial murderer. His victims are single mothers. Nicknamed "The Torch", because he sets the dead bodies on fire, he has eluded the efforts of the Seattle police, headed by Detective Jake Riley (Rooker) for three years. On Riley's last day on the force, the Torch claims his eleventh victim.

No longer on the force, Riley is recruited by the National Security Force (NSF) to participate in a top-secret operation. NSF has cloned Sevard's DNA and created Replicant (his name). The plan is to train Replicant and then attempt to tap into his memory and somehow get a lead to the killer. Riley takes charge of Replicant and begins his training, treating him like an animal, trying to trigger his memory.

The dual roles play to Van Damme's strengths as an actor. Replicant is childlike, has limited dialog, and communicates more by actions rather than words. Sevard is also more of a man of action, with most of his interaction with others consisting of fights or attacks. The fight scenes between the longhaired Sevard, and the close cropped clone, required extensive doubling, and are done pretty well.

Riley is actually the movie's lead character, and is important as the focal point between the Yin and Yang of the Van Damme characters. Put in a tough spot, he isn't sure how to handle Replicant, and so he must err on the side of caution, and treat him with a great deal of distrust. Michael Rooker really throws himself into the physically challenging role.

Replicant is a decent action movie. Jean-Claude is not required to go beyond his limits, and does a good job with the material. The aging action hero still has some good moves left, and believe it or not, his acting skills have improved some too. If you are a Van Damme or Rooker fan, check this one out.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: He may act better, but it's too lean on the action front.
Review: After the dissapointing team up of Van Damme and Ringo Lam on Maximum Risk, I must say I had my doubts about this film. And while it is better then Maximum Risk it is still a fairly flawed film.

As other reviewers have mentioned Van Damme does do a good job of portraying these duel good and evil roles, and he does not over act them like he might of in the 80's. But here lies the problem of this whole film. All the acting is fairly understated and the pacing is dull and plodding, and it is neither scary nor funny nor action packed. It tries to be a bit of everything and fails on all fronts...not completly, but enough to make it unsatisfying.

Now I don't know about you, but I think Michael Rooker is pretty dull. In Replicant I suppose he is fairly convincing as a hard-boiled cop, but he doesn't bring anything to the role that may have taken it to the next level. And speaking of Michael Rooker, one of the main reasons I got this DVD was for the Van Damme commentary, but alas he hardly speaks, when he does speak his english is alot worse then I thought it would be by now, but his excitement is very catchy. But bloody boring Michael Rooker talks alot, and it's almost always about himself and boy has he got an ego. By the end of the film he has resorted to talking about how much he works out and what a pity it was that he only got a short chance to show off his "muscled torso" breifly in a T-shirt in REPLICANT!!!!...

Now Ringo Lam has proved that he knows how to do some crazy action (like the chinese outings BURNING PARADISE and FULL CONTACT for example), but he REALLY holds back on the goods in REPLICANT. There is basicly no solid action scenes untill the end fight, which I thought would rule, but VAN DAMMES skills are barely used and the chreography, shot composistion and editing is not even very good.

To summarise REPLICANT is a dull, plodding and an unthrilling "thriller" with almost no decent action, unscary evil guy scenes and very underdeveloped sci/fi elements. However it is cool to see Van Damme extend himself acting wise.
For die hard fans of Van Damme only, or people who thought Maximum Risk, Double Team, Universal Soilder:The Return and Streetfighter were "good" Van Damme films.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Van Damne vs Van Damne
Review: Againg i saw this movie on T.V,and i loved it.Van Damne plays 2 characters.I character hes a killer that kills mom thats bad to their children.His other character is a clone so he could he get the bad one for this F.B.I agent.I loved this movie.I coudnt wait at the end becuase thats when Van Damne fights Van Damne.Good fight,they should make more of these.This movie is worth watching,trust me I am like a huge Van Damne fan and when I say his movie is good,then its good.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Over the hill...
Review: and past his prime to B-movieland he goes. Van Damme? Ho hum. Now free to embrace the old superheros retirement home along with pals Stallone, Schwarzaneggar & Segall et al, Damme(it)'s cardboard acting (indeed the entire flick) which delivers action that rivals a race between two slugs and character development, envisages twiggy-like thin-ness. Watch this movie as you would drying paint - in anticipation of fini!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: There maybe light at the end of the tunnel.
Review: As in most of my reviews I don't like to focus on the story of the movie, mainly the quality of the DVD. However, let me just say if more of Van Damme's movie are like this he may be moving up. Let's face it after The Quest his career declined slightly. This definetly worth a rental to anybody, but no Van Damme fan's collection is complete without it. The movie is displayed in a widescreen format and the audio is full Dolby Digital 5.1. The DVD is pretty nice in the special features department, deleted scenes, trailer, actor & crew bios, etc. Although the story is a little shaky, the acting is excellent, espcially Van Damme's. The action scenes were nice and the effects were done very well. I would also like to add that the culminating fight scene was choreographed very nice. This is a very nice DVD and any action fan will enjoy it thoroughly.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very good. One of van damn's best!
Review: Basically, van damn is a serial killer, who's already killed like a dozen people. He targets single moms, slices them and then burns the place down. The cops have been trying for like 3 years to find him with no luck. The main cop in the case retires from the force, and some government agency hires him to continue looking for the killer. Little does he know, they recovered a single hair from one of the crime scenes, and with that hair they basically made a clone of the killer. Their hope, is that the clone will be able to help them figure out who the killer is. And the clone is also played by, obviously, van damn. So, if you can by the whole cloning sci-fi stuff, and believe that, then the rest of the movie was actually very good. They don't dwell on or explain the cloning thing at all anyways. That whole thing is only a small part of the movie. So the ex-cop drags the clone all over town, trying to see if he can help him at all. The clone actually starts remembering things the killer did, and that helps the cops find the killer. There was quite a bit of fighting in it. It was nice to see he's still in great shape, unlike the other left over from the 80's, our old fat friend seagal. As a martial arts movie, not so good. As an action-suspense-murder-cop-thriller-mystery, pretty good.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: One of Van Damme's best
Review: First of all, this movie should have been released theatrically instead of going straight to Video. But since the DVD is here, Van Damme's fans (and action fans) should check it out. It is far better than his last 4 or 5 films (which are very bad: Desert heat, Universal soldiers: The return, Double Team, Knock off).

The story about cloning but director Ringo Lam made this movie highly entertaining. Van Damme plays double role, one is the serial killer, the other role as his clone which created so the police can catch the serial killer. Interestingly, Michael Rooker co-stars, he also appears in other cloning movie starring Arnold (The sixth day).

The DVD is OK. Bright and clear and the sound is fine. Van Damme provided commentary tracks along with ROoker, which are quite amusing. REcommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Damn you Artisan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Great great film that deserved a cinematic release in the US

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Jean-Claude Van Damme is now 'The Watcher'
Review: Have you seen 'The Watcher' with Keanu Reeves? Did you like that? Well you'll like this. Pretty much the same story as 'The Watcher' where there is a killer in black with long hair that kills lonely women and stalks a police officer. But in 'Replicant', the killer is cloned. I am a Jean-Claude Van Damme fan and I have to say that this film ROCKS! Probably Van Damme's best. Replicant is a sci-fi thriller. Good story and its new and different. The word 'ORIGINAL' comes to mind. Jean-Claude Van Damme acts good as the killer and the clone. Van Damme's voice even sounds different as when he's the killer which shows good acting. The voice of the killer by VD is awesome and he really sounds like a bad guy. The replicant is dumb and acts like a kid in a 40-year old body. Very good acting by Michael Rooker who plays a bad [...] cop. Like most of Rooker's films, he has a temper. Great film which is a definite recommend for everyone.

Recommend:

The Watcher (2000)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Two Van Dammes,One Damme Good Movie...
Review: I hate to say it but Van Damme's days as a box office superstar are over and probally we'll never see one of his flicks in theaters again.Replicant another film that went straight to video is a surprisingly good film.The film is directed by Ringo Ram,who also directed "Maximum Risk$Q brings alot of story and thought into the picture.Even though we've seen two Van Dammes before like in "Double Impact" this one has a more convincing story.Michael Rooker who plays Detective Jake Riley really does a great job acting.Van Dammes acting was also good and it's the first time he's really acted like a child,it's really funny.Even though liscensed critics down the movie,I however like it enough so that I own the DVD,it's a great film to watch if you like drama,action and a great sequence to a storyline.


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