Jean Claude

I miss Jean-Claude Van Damme. There was something fun about his movies...some of them anyway. He was perfectly at home with the standard 80s action flick, with the added bonus of his martial arts training. So there was everything that could be enjoyed about an Arnold or Stalone movie (explosions, fights, bad accents, etc), plus he could totally go ninja on a person. While I...uh...respect Chuck Norris for his, well, Chuck Norrisness, he just seemed to be completely about the Kung Fu. And then the Cowboy Fu (Walker Texas Ranger, anyone?). It just wasn't the same. 80s kung fu movies were different from 80s action movies, except for Van Damme. He could do it all.
What was the turning point? I have no idea. He just faded away, and ended up with Universal Soldier 2, which makes me die a little inside. The nineties were not kind to that man, and he really has not been on the radar for quite a while.
I recently came across this clip from a JCVD movie, and two things crossed my mind. First, why is the fight so slow and stilted. The actual fighting part of the movie looked like it was filmed in the early seventies, on TV, and just put on better film. Van Damme was an extremely talented martial artist, plus he studied ballet for five years, and while, as a guy, I am legally obligated to mock him for that (tee-hee), it does mean that he would have the grace and fluidity to make amazing fight scenes look that much more impressive. So why does it look like every punch was recorded separately from the next punch. It was boring and pointless.
The other thing that crossed my mind was that I had seen this before, and it made me sad, because all sorts of memories about the movie came back, and every one of them was fill with incredulity - the entire movie is completely ridiculous, and not in the good or fun way. Just the sad way.
And now I hear that he is working on Universal Soldier 3. If he does go through with it, it had better make everyone forget about part two. In fact, part of the third movie should explain how Universal Soldier 2 was a bad (very bad) dream and did not actually happen. That'd be nice.
In the meantime, I guess we'll all have to be satisfied with another update at Grasp the Nettle.