Replicant [2001]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]



Some facts: This is the fifth Van Damme movie that we've watched for Bad Movie Night and, according to Wikipedia, it is one of four movies in which he plays a duel role. The others include "Double Impact", "Maximum Risk", and "The Order". At some point the people in charge of creating more things for Van Damme to do (I assume there is a team that handles this and only this; same with Steven Segal) decided that one Van Damme was simply not enough and that what the people really want and need is at least two Van Dammes per film.

Van Damme #1 is a serial killer who seems to seek out young mothers so he can kill them and set their houses on fire. The protagonist is a cop, hours from retirement, who managed not to catch him again after three years of trying and enters his retirement relatively unfased. Then he starts getting threats from the serial killer and a shady government agency decides to fix everything by cloning the serial killer and giving Van Damme #2, who is inexplicably psychically connected to the killer, to the protagonist as a crime sniffing pet. Van Damme #2 is basically a human Lassie combined with a parrot and a lot of the humor comes from him trying to navigate the world around him. The protagonist is particularly unhelpful to Van Lassie and frequently treats him as he would like to treat Van Killer. After numerous shenanighans involving Van Damme on Van Damme violence and Van Lassie trying to solicate a prostitute with no idea how, there is a lengthy final showdown in which Van Lassie's loyalty to his master is proven stronger than his loyalty to his "brother" and he dies heroically while Van Killer dies in a fire of irony. Or does he?

All in all, it's your typical Van Damme movie: silly (although this time often intentionally) and full of dragging fight scenes. What is crazy about this film is that the budget for it was $17 million and most of that probably went into destroying property. Was it worth it to see Van Damme staring dumbly into the camera for over an hour? You decide (but the answer is yes).

Quotes:
"Hi." (offers hand) "Wendy Wyckham."
(repeating) "Calm the fuck down."

Sometimes the clone repeats lines from his human training video - "I am sitting. I am walking."- and it seems like Van Damme is reading the script.

"I beat the shit out of him. Honest mistake."

(last lines said wistfully) "He likes rain."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "It was good."