Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. You know, I never was obsessed with Jean-Claude Van Damme movies on the whole, but there was a time in my early teen years when I saw BLOOD SPORT a dozen times or so. I saw his flicks theatrically and enjoyed them, but I guess I haven't really thought about how much I missed him until I started hearing about JCVD, a film in which he plays himself caught in a real life fucked up situation. The trailer looks great and the advance word is surprisingly positive, including from Princess Buttercup below, who saw the flick up in Toronto! She has a short, but sweet review.

I have a few short weeks myself where I hit it with a fury at Fantastic Fest!

Here's Princess... Butt-ah-cup!

Hi AICN,

A small review for you - I've just seen JCVD. But I have a confession to make...I've never seen a Jean-Claude Van Damme film. I picked the film because the description made me curious, and if my other picks are this good, then I'm really looking forward to this year's TIFF. JCVD was so good that it makes me want to go back and watch those Van Damme films I missed and makes me want to see what else Mabrouk El Mechri has done / will come up with. Actually, I'm curious to see what comes next from Van Damme too.

(spoilers ahead)

The basic plot of the film is that Van Damme returns home to Belgium after losing a custody battle for his daughter in L.A. and while trying to withdraw some money in a bank, gets caught up in a robbery/hostage situation.

The film opens with a fantastic action sequence, done in one continuous shot. I rapidly lost track of the body count. The action sequence kicks some serious ass but then segues into a comedic scene - I was really impressed by the flow of the movie. It bundles together action, comedy and some highly emotional scenes which on paper sounds like it wouldn't quite gel together, but was great on screen. The movie plays with flashbacks and giving us different perspectives on the same scene - not exactly a new technique, but it works well here. And I thought it was interesting that during the Q&A, El Mechri mentioned that on the DVD, he was going to include some deleted scenes which were in the trailer and also have a version of the film which is in time sequence, not flashbacks.

A large part of the film was improvised and by far the most impressive moment is a monologue by Van Damme which is almost shockingly personal. And it's interesting to see how other characters react to Van Damme - seeing him as Belgium's hero vs just another man vs a commodity. For example, there's a taxi driver who tells Van Damme that he's her hero, but then immediately begins to turn against him as he tiredly tries to deflect conversation, only to insist upon getting an autographed photo.

(end of spoilers)

JCVD is well worth your time - drag your friends to it too. I always expect some sort of kick-ass fun when I go to a midnight madness screening, but I don't expect to get the depth and emotion that JCVD has. It's a surprising movie, in the best possible way.

If you use this, just call me Princess Buttercup.