The Story: On his last day before his retirement, Detective Jake Riley (Michael Rooker) nearly catches The Torch (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a pyromaniac-serial killer, who beats and then burns young mothers, and whom Jake has been trying to catch, playing a game of cat and mouse with for three years. The Torch has never been ID'd, other than he is a white male probably between the ages of 35-45. Jake tries to move on with his retirement, but The Torch still hounds him, and Jake is given an opportunity by a shady government agency to track The Torch down. It seems the government has been in the process of trying to make clones based on DNA samples from terrorists, creating "replicants" that will have a psychic bond with the terrorists, enabling the govt. to track them down (something actually pretty poignant in our times). They offer to let Jake escort, mentally stimulate a replicant of The Torch, to see if the clone can help catch the killer. The Replicant (once again, of course, Jean-Claude) is a rather childlike thing, but learns quickly how to walk and be acrobatic through gymnastic tapes, and its speech is limited, repeating things Jake says (subsequently making some gags where Replicant cusses at people). Jake is pretty cruel to the clone, treating it like a dog, provoking it, generally smacking it around, keeping it in line with a tazer and handcuffs, but soon Jake realizes that the thing is an innocent, but still worries that it will become exactly what it was cloned from. As the Replicant begins to see flashes of The Torch, and Jake get hot on the trail of the killer, pinning down who he is based on Replicants insights, new problems arise, such as- Replicant questioning what it is and The Torch discovering Replicant, trying to form a kinship with it and make it betray Jake.

The Film: I really do not like Jean-Claude Van Damme, however I love Ringo Lam, and I really enjoyed (at 1AM on Showtime some night, long ago) Maximum Risk, the previous film the two made. So, that is why I decided to give Replicant a chance, and well, I got mixed results.

This makes the third Jean-Claude Van Damme movie to feature JC playing dual roles. I want to say its his ego that thinks two of him makes a film better, but I'll be kind and assume his mom read him The Corsican Brothers a lot when he was a child. Whether or not you will like Replicant largely hinges on if seeing Jean Claude as a greasy, stereotypical psycho and a blithering, want-to-be-sympathetic Rain Man sounds like a fun way to spend an hour and a half. Honestly, it is a bold move on Jean-Claude's behalf, not playing his usual stud, but he isn't exactly the Brando of our times either. Sure, he does okay in Replicant, I guess, but its not like theres anywhere to go but up when you starred in Steetfighter and Death Warrant. The plotting is riddled with your usual sci fi and action stupidity, and some of it they do their best to dance around (like why not take a picture of Replicant and put out an APB and track down the Torch?) but mainly it is very unconvincing and clichéd. Replicant has many a scene where we are supposed to have our hearts tugged at how badly it is treated, but its as manipulative as a Lifetime Channel film or a "very special" episode of Oprah... Heeding to the action rules of being a bad guy, the Torch actually sings "Rock-A-Bye-Baby" when he's performing his murders. I nearly stopped the movie just for that violation alone... Its also confusing that Replicant can barely speak, mainly just repeats stuff, but they expect him to tell details of how and where to find the Torch? In one scene when he looks at a wall of murder photos he just says, "Me kill."... A scene where Jake takes Replicant home, throws him in the bathroom, and tries to find a tracking device on him, turns unintentionally funny, when Jake's mom walks in, seeing her son with a handcuffed Replicant stripped down to his underwear... So, it is really stupid, but then again, anyone picking up a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie isn't exactly expecting to find Macbeth.

Now, what I like about the film can be attributed to Ringo Lam (City on Fire, Prison on Fire, Burning Paradise.). One of the things that he did both in Maximum Risk and here, is he doesn't go for all those fruity, ballet, gymnastic floor show martial moves that Van Damme usually perpetuates. Ringo Lam wont allow anything like that in his movies. He narrows the scope of the fighting to his usual down and dirty, straightforward, mean, chaotic, and downright ugly fight choreography. Ringo also doesn't really give a lot of hand to hand combat at all, and makes the sequences very brief, which is the way his films work. Although you can tell he threw in an obligatory fight here and there, he's one of the few action directors that doesn't want to go overboard. However brief, he does make his action count in a very subtle way, by making it both clumsy and brutal. When he does an explosion, its not some pretty fireball, its something that rains shrapnel down on the innocent people walking below on the street. Overall the best action scene involves Jake, The Torch, and an ambulance in a parking garage, that is just great. Also on the plus side, Michael Rooker continues his long line of b-movie, fuming man roles, carving out yet another frustrated macho cop. Sure, he's limited by the material, but he does fine.

It was only a matter of time before Jean Claude Van Damme went to Direct-to-Video-Land. In 1995 when Jackie Chan made his big move and pushed his way into the American market, I think I figured the death bells would soon toll for Jean Claude's theatrical career. You know what?- I was right. Although Jean Claude did his best to capitalize on the Asian action director trend, he put John Woo's talent in a stranglehold on Hard Target, and made the mistake of thinking a basketball star as a co-star would be a good move with Tsui Hark's Double Team. It has been dog after dog, and dismal audience turnouts, relegating the Belgian to premieres on video store isles alongside Dolph Lundgren and Don "The Dragon" Wilson. Now, I want it to be clear, I don't take pleasure in dissing Jean Claude because he is a bad-fake martial artist or because he makes bad movies (Lords knows I have a love of both genres). I diss him because the guy has an ego, an out of control, big as a mutating Keneda ego, and is therefore deserving of a little ridicule. I mean, Jackie Chan is a great martial artist, paid his dues in the Peking Opera school as a child, as a minor stuntman in his early twenties, but once the guy struck it big in the late 70's, he had an ego the size of Van Dammes and strutted around just as much. Then he quickly started to have failures. It took failure to actually turn Jackie Chan into a visionary film figure and a humble man. Once the success didn't matter, and Chan just wanted to make good films for an audience, he became successful. Van Damme differs because has always cared more about himself than an audience so his overblown ego deserves Direct-To-Video-Land, and guess what, I doubt he's got the talent, taste, or humbleness to resurrect himself. At the least, I guess all I can say that is good about the guy is, he sometimes chooses good directors.

So, if you are a Jean-Claude fan, and you can get over the weirdness of his trying to be a villain and a simpleton- then go for it. The rest of you have been warned- may want to rent it first (alone, so you won't get ridiculed by your friends).

The DVD: Artisan Entertainment really outdoes themselves with this direct to video release, giving a great presentation, with lots of extras, making it I assume, the most feature packed, and probably best Jean Claude Van Damme DVD on the market. Picture- Widescreen anamorphic – Great picture all around. Although its not the highest budgeted film, they make the best of what they had, and really made the production look very good. Sound- English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0). Optional Spanish subs. Crisp and clear, great job all around. Extras- 19 Chapters- A Photo Gallery- Storyboards- Theatrical trailers (even though it never made it to theaters)- Cast and Crew Bios, of JC, Rooker, the woman played Rooker's partner (who is barely in the movie)Ringo Lam, and... amusingly, not one, but all four of Replicant's b-movie trash producers get bios and filmography listings- Commentary by Jean-Claude Van Damme and Michael Rooker. I skipped thorough and listened to maybe 20 mins of commentary at various points in the film. Both men are on the same track, but obviously recorded separately. Rooker takes up most of the comments, and has insightful things to say about the production, Ringo Lam, laughing at himself for doing such dangerous action scenes, and I really enjoyed what I heard (for the record I'm not a big fan of commentary tracks). Jean Claude's broken English comments were brief, and a little more mannered, simple, and self conscious (like he would make a comment, then say "Thank You.", disappear, come back, make another comment, say "Thank You", and so forth).- and, finally, Eight Deleted Scenes, all rough wiht timecodes. Most show some more backstory to Rooker's character, or are alternate edits like the opening murder, the Replicant birth sequence, and the ending.