Derailed

A train full of terrorists. A biological weapon. Sound familiar? Well it is due to the fact Derailed borrows most of its ideas and scenarios from other movies. Jean Claude Van Damme stars as a special agent trying to get a thief and her cargo from one point to another. Mode of transportation is a train and like most action fans will immediately think of is Under Siege 2. Of course that movie utilized this idea much better but we are working on a much lower budget. The cargo happens to be vials of a toxic nature that so happen to be wanted by the bad guys. This movie is strictly for hardcore Van Damme fans only. Essentially he is the only real saving grace of the movie as is Laura Harring who plays the thief. The biggest problem with this film? Everything else. Borrowed story, terrible editing, horrible cheap effects, sound design that needs to be heard to be believed. For i'm certain movie fans can pick up sound effects from other things that are used in certain spots throughout. JCVD should have skipped this one but he didn't and his fans get treated to this mediocre film. Not his fault of course but as a loyal Van Damme fan myself, even I thought this film was bad. Even if you can get passed the minor gripes and try to enjoy the movie, the editing and effects will make you think twice. Everything looks cheap and shoddy.The bad guys are stereotypical in every form and their deaths in some cases are over-exaggerated. Everybody makes bad films from time to time and this is at the bottom of Van Damme's filmography. It would have been a lot better in someone's else hands who understands how to use Van Damme and his talents correctly. Still just off of Van DAmme alone I'm giving this a 4 out of 10. The movie will pass some time if you are looking to kill some but you will be wondering how this movie derailed so bad.

Jacques Kristoff (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is an agent assigned to protect a woman, who stole a deadly virus in Slovakia, in a travel by train to Munich. His wife, his son and his daughter get in the train without previous notice to make a surprise party for him, as well as a group of terrorists, trying to retrieve the virus. While fighting, the virus is released in a wagon and the passengers get sick. This film is so dreadful that does not deserve much time in writing a review. The effects, dialogs, performances, direction are awful. The screenplay has lots of flaws. The grimace of the black terrorist is ridiculous and pathetic. Van Damme needs to retire. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): `Agente Biológico' (`Biological Agent')

As others have commented, this is a blatant rip-off of THE CASSANDRA CROSSING (including a bridge climax!), as well as UNDER SIEGE 2. So there is nothing new here, to say the least. In fact, there's a lot that could be considered "old", such as cheesy modelwork and remarkably unexciting chase sequences. The "new" style effects (computer graphics) look equally as bad.

As for the martial arts, they are pretty uninspired for the most part (a lot of simple punches and relatively simple kicks), and are *very* badly directed, with the action in-your-face with the camera jiggling around to boot. These sequences aren't the only ones that don't make much sense in the movie. There are several jumps in the narrative that are jarring, and a few times where characters seem to die and soon afterwards come back to life.

How much lower will Van Damme go?

Forced to conceal his real job from his family, international agent Jacques Kristoff tells them he is taking a train journey with a banking client where really he is escorting the beautiful Galina Konstantin and a biological weapons package to safety across the border. Regardless, his family surprise him on the train, thinking it will be a nice gesture and end up thinking he is having an affair. Before he can apologise and explain, terrorists led by the ruthless Mason Cole seize the train and start hunting for Galina and the virus. With his family in danger and the virus released on board, Jacques must not only stop the terrorists but do so before the Governent take the only available option to stop an outbreak.

Ten years or so is quite a long time. About ten years ago I had just moved to England for the first time and started studying. Since then I've been married, divorced, bought a house, got several jobs and owned one very knackered car. But the mid-nineties must seem even longer ago for Van Damme because then he was having hits like Universal Soldier and Time Cop whereas by 2002 he had sunk to appearing in rubbish like this – not that he was ever a great star but this film is below even him. The plot is a basic rip off of Under Siege 2 crossed with Cassandra Crossing with any sense of fun, excitement or involvement skilfully removed by writers who between them are responsible for other classics include Octopus, Octopus 2: River of Fear (both Davidson) and Crocodile and Crocodile 2: Death Roll (both Anderson). It doesn't help that the man chosen to pull it all together as director is the man who made Shark Attack with lots of stock footage and no thrills.

The plot is messy and pointless – people apparently die then return with no explanation, the action lacks logic and the whole virus thing is just daft. With this type of film this stuff usually can be forgotten if the action is slick and the film is fun to watch; Under Siege 2 is a good example – it is rubbish but I quite enjoyed it so I forgave it. However the action here is poor with basic, uninspiring fights and no real tension; when I saw Van Damme jumping around the train on a motorbike I felt like just turning it off in disgust. The supporting "actors" dying one the train did nothing to make me care one way or the other and the whole thing just felt cheap. The effects make this worse, being as they are a mix of rubbish computer effects or rubbish model work or a rubbish combination of both.

The writing is clunky and full of dialogue that if even a horse spoke it your surprise at a speaking horse would come secondary to the annoyance you feel towards the unconvincing nature of his words. Already hamstrung by this the cast can do nothing to improve the situation; although many of the cast appear perfectly at home at this level. It speaks volumes that Van Damme is actually one of the best performances in the film; he is mean and tough in style – just a shame the action and dialogue are so poor that he can't do anything with it. The rest of the cast are so-so support. We have the tough baddie in a humourless and dour Arana, a sexy female co-star in Harring (who does fill the sexy requirement well), loads of European rent-a-thugs and a train load of hammy dying people including Gibney, Bowman, Van Varenberg (who can kick and can't act, hmmm) and the hilariously named Binky van Bilderbeek, who must have had a lot of fun in his fancy English school as a child.

Overall this shambles is loaded with clichés, bad dialogue, bad direction, cheap effects and bad performances. Fun, excitement, humour, thrills and entertainment all got off at the last stop and nothing of value got on in its place. Even Van Damme fans will be turned off by this rubbish and it is only Steven Seagal fans that should be happy because it at least shows what an entertaining film Under Siege 2 really was.

While not the worst movie Van Damme has ever made, it is nothing more than a mediocre entry into the straight-to-video schlock-fest JC finds himself stuck in.

This is not so much a review of the movie, you can see from most of the other posts that this is an Under Seige 2 rip-off, with a little Outbreak thrown in for laughs. This is more a statement of the dreadful path this man's career has taken. This man was so close to becoming a major action star when he had a major brain fade and did Street Fighter. Every movie of his since has tanked at the box office, even the really good ones. After Universal Soldier 2 rolled around to stink up the box office, all his stuff has gone straight-to-video, good or bad. It is a sad testament. Maybe he should team up with a rap artist and make a movie. Hell, it worked for Seagal's career!

Rent it if you are a fan of JCVD, otherwise skip it.