JCVD

Jean-Claude Van Damme will soon be too old to be an action star. He’s got to reinvent himself, or fade away. It’s common for typecast actors to break the mold by doing something strange that makes fun of their image. It’s less common for the story of that vehicle to actually be the actor’s change.

On the other hand, as much as I’d like to believe that this movie represents a more sophisticated facet of Van Damme, I don’t. It has the feel of something that was put together by an agent trying to re-infuse their client’s career. Van Damme doesn’t seem to be acting any more than usual here… he’s just been stuck inside a self-referential indie movie.

Does the fact that he made a career decision to do something that would make him seem more interesting, actually make him more interesting? He didn’t write it or direct it. He probably just agreed to be in it.

Here’s the quicktime trailer.

Also pictured: Boris Karloff, Jerry Lewis, and Peter Falk as characters based on themselves, in Targets, King Of Comedy, and Wings Of Desire.