“Day of Reckoning is somehow not just the best film in the series,” marveled the Atlantic’s Ian Buckwalter, “but a damn fine piece of action filmmaking by any measure.”
#Timecop rotten tomatoes series
Given its messy history, one could hardly expect the fourth theatrical installment in the series to be met with anything but critical mockery and disdain, but the pundits actually found 2012’s Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning to be a fairly solid effort, at least in the context of the genre.
#Timecop rotten tomatoes tv
A pair of TV movies continued the story without the original stars, only to be wiped out of canon by a belated theatrical sequel, 1999’s Universal Soldier: The Return, which did without Lundgren and made Van Damme’s character an ordinary human when that didn’t stick, 2009’s Universal Soldier: Regeneration reunited both leads and ignored everything but the original. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012) 56%Ī late-period sci-fi/action hit whose bloom into franchise status was derailed by studio problems and changing trends, 1992’s Universal Soldier starred Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as a pair of Vietnam soldiers who died in the war, only to be brought back to life as technologically advanced killing machines. But this is my favorite kind of garbage.”Ĥ. Like the first installment, Expendables 2 did pretty much what it said on the tin, and was rewarded with positive if not effusive reviews as Sean Burns wrote for Philadelphia Weekly, “Of course it’s garbage.
Successfully wooed for the follow-up after reportedly rejecting an opportunity to star in the original, Van Damme joined the well-muscled ensemble as Jean Vilain, a descriptively named bad guy who leads an opposing band of mercenaries in the fight against Barney Ross (Stallone) and his crew of aging heroes. It isn’t really an action hero party until Jean-Claude Van Damme is invited - something Sylvester Stallone evidently realized while putting together Expendables 2, the first sequel to his over-the-top all-star tribute to the genre. Had it been released during his heyday, this might have become one of Van Damme’s biggest hits as Michael Nordine argued for the Village Voice, “ Enemies Closer is the first collaboration between Peter Hyams and Jean-Claude Van Damme since 1995’s Sudden Death. Witness Enemies Closer, which sees him reuniting with Timecop director Peter Hyams for the story of a forest ranger/ex-SEAL (Tom Everett Scott) whose life-or-death conflict with a former fellow officer’s brother (Orlando Jones) is interrupted by the arrival of a drug smuggler (Van Damme) determined to plunder a recently downed plane. There’s a certain element of self-aware irony to some of the better-reviewed efforts Van Damme has filmed in recent years, but he’s still capable of anchoring a straight up action thriller, even if the market for the genre isn’t what it once was. “It is nothing if not a triumph of humanism.” “By pitting JCVD the axiom against JCVD the person, JCVD deconstructs and deepens the understanding of both,” wrote Christopher Huber for Cinema Scope. While the setup retains elements of your average Van Damme action thriller - a seemingly ordinary guy heads into the bank to make a transfer, only to discover he’s stumbled into a stickup - that’s really just the opening for a sharp, ruefully funny drama with a meta layer that allows its star to publicly come to terms with the highs and lows of his real-life past.
Van Damme’s larger-than-life persona and frequently ill-advised offscreen exploits made him a magnet for schadenfreude after the action boom ended, but to his credit, he was able to have a sense of humor about his fall from grace - as evidenced by the down-on-his-luck version of “Jean-Claude Van Damme” he played in 2008’s JCVD, earning some of the best reviews of his career in the process.
(Photo by Peace Arch Entertainment Group courtesy Everett Collection)
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