Midweek Mention... Universal Soldier

Universal Soldier

Dan: We haven't done that many Jean-Claude Van Damme movies,

Cris: Not as many as we should have done No

Sidey: No

Cris: how great of an actor he is Perhaps

Sidey: we should complete the full set.

Dan: Well,

who knows? Yeah. I

Sidey: think

Cris: I think we did- Blood Sport. Did we do? ... Kickboxer

Dan: I think we did- Blood Sport, did we

Sidey: we did- Blood Sport ... Kickboxer or Blood Sport. Blood Sport, was it? The one with the Kumite.

Kumite. Kumi- I think, I think it's Blood Sport

Dan: Sport, yeah.

Sidey: So that might have been the only one, the only other one we've done. So the-

Dan: just such a legend, and we're obviously doing Universal Soldier this week.

Sidey: My notes have this down genre-wise as a techno-thriller.

Dan: Yeah, sci-fi techno-thriller. We're

Sidey: We're taking it back to '92 here.

Dan: And it goes back even further than that with the beginning of the film- Yes ... because we go back to Vietnam. Yeah, go back to Vietnam. That's right. There's a few flashbacks through the film, isn't there?

Sidey: Yeah, it's a lot of flashing.

Cris: Yeah. He's r- there's... Well, there's someone running through the jungle at the beginning.

Dan: That's right. There's some

Sidey: terrible- Oh, platoon, dead. [00:01:00] Yeah. Yeah. There's just- Some terrified man ... people are, are scared and, like, just running away and being killed instantly. And

Dan: running through- By

Sidey: they run through- Apart from, apart from Jean-Claude, who's- Yeah.

Cris: who's just walking

up-

Sidey: holding it together. But he's sort of...

When he's walking around, he's discovering some bodies, and they don't have ears attached. I'm pretty

Cris: sure at the beginning the guy says lieutenant lost it or the lieutenant lost it or something like that

Sidey: gone Colonel Kurtz.

Cris: Yeah.

But, but you don't know exactly what happened and then he finds the bodies. They're

Dan: running through what is e- effectively a garden center.

Yeah. The budget-

Sidey: I wasn't buying- There's some plants ... I wasn't getting full, full on Nam vibes from that location. Yeah. No,

Cris: a full on

Dan: Yeah No. The, the huts were, were kinda put together in a lunch hour or so. But and then there was just, like, flames around to make it all seem a little chaotic and apocalyptic. And there we see Dolph Lundgren, who's looking at two Vietnamese-

Well,

Sidey: getting- sewn into a- You see the ears

Cris: getting- Yeah Yeah. You see him making a sewing-

Sidey: into some sort of trophy necklace thing first. Yeah. And then it, it, it [00:02:00] becomes clear that it's D- pardon me, Dolph. Yeah. And he's got two other villagers- Yeah

Captive, and he's gone completely bananas. Yeah. They're all traitors. Everyone's a traitor it seems he, in his eyes. And he basically gives an order to Van Damme to execute these two.

Dan: say they're, they're innocent. This village is, is been kinda cleared and, and he won't have it.

Van Damme, he says, "No, they're all traitors. They're all kinda stabbing you in the back." And then he executes

Sidey: executes-

Dan: the guy there.

Sidey: him through the f-, yeah, straight through the head, forehead ... and Van Damme then

Dan: kind of- Kicks him ... kicks him

Sidey: Yeah, I think he bats him with the- Up in the air ... with the butt of a, his, his rifle. They have a fight where he's basically knocks him down and then tries to run off with her.

He's,

Dan: he slips and he shouts to her, doesn't he?

Sidey: sh- shoot, he shoots him.

Cris: Shoots him in the back of the leg, no?

Sidey: Sergeant Andrew Scott shoots him- Yeah ... in the leg and as he's down on the floor, he screams at her to [00:03:00] run, and we just see, Yeah, the grenade ... Scott, he just lobs the grenade at her and it kills her, and he, "No."

Dan: kills her.

Sidey: So they have a f- a, the final fight-

Dan: And they turn round and shoot each

Sidey: back to back, they face each other. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: And and you think, God, that's, that's the start of it, and I didn't remember this. I've seen this film before. This is the first time. Oh, really? Oh. First time

Cris: it before. Don't worry about that.

No,

Dan: I'd,

I'd seen this before, but a long time ago, and I didn't remember this this beginning bit. Anyway, we cut to present day. And the next time we see both these soldiers, they're being carted out of a military kinda unit. And we're in the future where they've made these cyborgs of,

Sidey: Well,

Cris: it says present day.

There's no future. Yeah. It just says present day.

Dan: Yeah, well, the future from-

Cris: Oh, right, from 'Nam ... you

know,

Dan: present day

Sidey: been on ice for- 20 years ... 20 odd years, yeah. Now they've got some sort of shit plastic borg looking- Yeah ... it's, it's just a camera really- It is ... and a microphone. It's, it's a camera.

That's about the extent of the high-techness of it [00:04:00] all.

Dan: And there was something to do with-

Sidey: But they were clearly dead. He had- ... freezing blood or something ... he had been shot By Lung Dolph. And then at this while he'd been shot, he bayoneted Dolph and twisted the rifle, and they were both clearly dead. Yes.

Yeah. And yet- And yet

Dan: And yet, no, they've been brought back. And we do hear that actually as they're clearing up the village and zipping up the bags of both

Sidey: we got a code blah-da-dah.

Dan: You've got a, you've got a kind of learner there.

Yeah. But he

Sidey: Yeah. You know, these guys are gonna be mission- missing

Dan: didn't happen." You know, these guys are gonna be MIA, mission- missing in action. And that's why their, their families never get told. Yeah. And they're just kind of both in this program then which is just using their bodies because they're obviously not gonna have any real human thoughts anymore.

They're simply robots, and we

Cris: we think

Dan: Or so we think. Or so we think. I mean, what could go wrong? There's a situation on a dam. Yeah. And-

Cris: that

Sidey: Is that Hoover Dam? I think it was the same dam. I think it could be. No, it couldn't have been the same dam- No, Van Damme ... from GoldenEye. Was it?

Cris: Yeah, it wasn't D- Van

Sidey: I guess it must have been Hoover Dam.

Cris: Hoover Dam, it [00:05:00] looks

Sidey: like it.

Yeah.

Cris: never been there myself, but, you know.

Sidey: I was wondering if it was gonna be another inanimate object that's appeared in multiple... It, it must have appeared in multiple films. I was wondering if it was the same one from GoldenEye, but that's not. That's in

Dan: it was the same one from GoldenEye, but that's not. That's in-

Sidey: Switzerland?

Cris: Yeah, it's somewhere else, that one

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: Yes, there's a load of dead people, and then we see another couple of people get executed, hostages. Yeah. And some-

Cris: Para- yeah, some- Terroric, Bad guys

Sidey: terrorists have got a shitload of people from the facility held captive, and they want their comrades to be released from some prison or

Dan: or $1 million

And

Sidey: it's, but it's a great excuse to wheel out our new unisols- Yeah

and see what they're made of. And they have got some pretty, like, slick moves. One of them, think it might even be Van Damme, who goes, climbs up the back of the d-

Cris: Well, no,

the first things first, they drop them 1.4 miles,

Sidey: They've got time, timer, yeah

Cris: And the, the, the guy's like, "You dropped them 1.4 miles," and the-

Sidey: swim

Dan: in the... That's right

Cris: yeah.

[00:06:00] In... And the, the guy's like, "Oh yeah, it took them-

Dan: Four minutes

Cris: four minutes." Like, "Oh yeah, they're, they're four seconds too long or late- Yeah, yeah ... or something like that." And

Dan: you're like-

Sidey: They're, they're behind schedule. But it-

Cris: doesn't swim that fast, but okay.

Dan: it, it

but okay ... they're, then they run up the sides of the dam, run down the side of the dam. They go in as a coordinated team. They've got these

Sidey: They do a bit of snipering ... sensors, bit of snipering They do a bit of, like, close combat executing.

Dan: TV cameras have come, and one girl who's

Sidey: getting- Smoking hot

just,

Dan: just in the, just in time

Cris: also smoking

Sidey: Yeah. All, all that as well. Loads of smoking in reference in this film. Yeah. Yeah. 147 I think it was sponsored, but this is sp- this movie was sponsored by Big Cigarette and Pepsi, because there was

Cris: There was, yeah, loads of it everywhere, yeah.

Dan: yeah And well they, she comes in and does her, her piece to camera saying you know, "The terrorists are here."

She gets fired at that

Sidey: Yeah, she gives it the big one, and the guy's like, "Listen, fuck off," and just sacks her on the

Dan: we don't need you. "But I always do the great pieces," but so she's looking for a job as this [00:07:00] situation comes to an end, and

they,

they've successfully got the hostages back and one

Sidey: guy got- Well, it's good 'cause-

Dan: guy got shot, didn't

Sidey: He got- They, they break in and there's- Like multiple times and he

Dan: wakes up again and just

Sidey: yeah, 'cause there's three guys in the corridor, and there's one guy with a bomb in a suitcase, and then there's Van Damme and

Cris: Dolph Lundgren

Sidey: Lundgren. So they draw off the two guys, and the guy with the bomb, they-- the, the enormous fucking soldier guy, I mean, he's fucking huge.

They shoot him like 10 times and he's down, and he's got his little,

Dan: little

Sidey: handyman-

Cris: his little, He's got, yeah, like a camera but in a, in a trolley thing, yeah. And

Sidey: as they walk past him thinking he's dead, he comes back to life again. Yeah. And executes the one with the suitcase, and they kill the other two, and you're like, "Fuck."

So even w- they can get shot and they can still,

Dan: They can still function. Yeah. They

can still go. And it's a, it's a perfect demonstration of the universal soldier. And they don't wanna give anything away to the press, so they just kinda go through [00:08:00] and say that there'll be a briefing later.

"Oh, no, we need something now." "No, sorry." So she- We've

Sidey: got a rogue reporter now though- Yeah ... so

Dan: we've got a rogue reporter looking for a story to get her job back, and she manages to chat to Ralph, is it? The assistant, the cameraman. And he's like, "Oh..." She goes, "I've got an idea." "Oh, I hate it when you say that."

"Like,

it's gonna be the trouble you get me into."

So they bust

Sidey: in- Garth, I think his name is. Ralph Garth, is it? Yeah.

Dan: And they bust into

the,

the plane, the secret kind of lair of the military base. And

Sidey: Well, we get to see what their-

Dan: their- She starts taking

Sidey: maintenance required on a universal

Cris: Yeah, because they're

Sidey: they run hot. Yeah. And they have a little wrist, like a maybe a Casio little thermometer thing- Yeah ... that tells them when they need to cool the fuck down. And they effectively, again, like the Borg, have to sort of plug themselves into a, like a cryo chamber thing to reduce their temperature, and they get a daily injection- [00:09:00] Yeah

for some reason, through a really complicated

Cris: Which we have to say, this is the first time when we meet the universal soldiers, and when Van Damme's character sees the Asians- Yes ... in, in the prisoners- Van Damme ... he has a flashback about the two prisoners that,

Dan: right, yeah

Cris: Scott shot.

So he's got that, and then he freezes.

Sidey: looks at Scott as well,

Cris: at Scott as well. He looks at Scott. He... And, and Scott kinda looks at him, but he doesn't say anything, so it's-

Dan: "Seoff, F2, please respond. You gotta respond."

Cris: there's

Dan: won't have it, will he? Yeah. There's already, there's already

Sidey: a

Cris: a little bit of tension because we don't know what happens.

Sidey: they're

Cris: They go back in, and the, the guy's like double his dose of the injection, the liquid- "Are you

Dan: that's safe?" And

Cris: liquid semen. Yeah. We- Just give him in the back of the head.

Dan: Back, back of the neck. Another

Sidey: a daily memory wipe, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: Absolutely nothing ethically wrong with

Cris: then we get the reporter that sneaks in because she's not happy to just take photos from the distance.

Obviously her in her skirt, her short mini skirt, has to go in and she sees [00:10:00] the Universal Soldier that got shot put on ice in a box outside of the

Dan: saying, "Oh, no casualties, huh?"

Because they've denied there's any casualties. And then he sort of gets up, and she can see his wounds are healing and he opens his eyes At this point, all chaos, isn't it?

Cris: They've recognized that she's there, she's taking photos, get her, and then we get the chase where she runs with the cameraman

Dan: And they get about... Yeah, they get about, I don't know, 200 meters before his bad driving puts him into trouble. Put him in bush, yeah. They were never gonna get out of there

Cris: all. It was just crazy. And Universal Soldier then just guns down the r- the,

Dan: at all. It was just crazy. And Universal Soldier then

Sidey: just

Dan: guns down the r- the the cameraman. Well,

Sidey: yeah. Dolph Lundgren

Cris: just decides to execute the cameraman just-

Sidey: He seems like it didn't take much for him to go rogue.

No.

Dan: No. He, he was, he... There was some wiring short in the first place, I think. And Van Damme then Grabs

Sidey: the

Dan: the girl [00:11:00] and

Cris: We get the flashback again- Yeah ... with the girl that was a

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: they head off and suddenly it's a, a road movie

Sidey: chase movie, yeah. Yeah.

Dan: They're,

they're on the run. And they get away.

And there's various scenes of them just narrowly escaping as Dolph goes more and

Cris: pushes the car ... out of control. Yeah. He pushes the car. Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: The the... My favorite scene I think is the diner where he,

Cris: when the, in the bathroom, in the restrooms

Well,

Sidey: just when he, he's eating and then-

Cris: Oh, I thought when he's naked and he's like,

Sidey: Oh, that was good actually, where you, where you s- see his ass later on.

But I know it's his ... No, it's first, it's in the motel, isn't it? Where they, where they first get caught and he's just stood in the- Well, it's a gas station and he's gotta- Oh,

Dan: where they first get caught and he's stood in the- The, the, well, it's a gas station, and

Cris: first it's at the gas station. He's

Dan: take the- Where he gets his ass out.

Cris: take the- First he gets his ass out.

That's at the motel. That's later.

Dan: Yeah, so a gas station is hide the car around the back to

you

know, s- take it off the road as they're looking for him. And he knows that they've probably got a a location device in him, and he strips down, doesn't he? And- Yeah ... and asks her, he says, "Should that be there?

Look for something hard."

you

know, a little bit- ... of

Cris: little bit-[00:12:00]

Dan: there. And she finds... Like, he cuts it out of his leg and gets her to pull out this big kind of black snakey

Cris: Tracking device, yeah ... tracking device.

Sidey: And-

Dan: yeah ... tracking device. And then they've s- booby-trapped the the guy's business the gas attendant.

Sidey: Yeah.

Cris: Yeah. They hide in the, in the booths of the car covered in bags

Dan: never see that guy again. He, the, you know the guy who's asked- Yeah

Cris: Yes. Yeah, he You never see

Dan: see him again. They just

Sidey: it- Just a bit of cla- collateral damage Yeah,

Dan: maybe he goes up with the the rest of the,

Sidey: the building.

Dan: when they go in there, Universal Soldiers who have tracked him and found

Sidey: their,

Dan: the,

the tracking device they go in shooting and it just sets off a load of booby traps and everything blows up- Yeah

doesn't it? At this point, Dolph is seeing all these burnt, charred bodies and everything around, and he ends up going full rogue and shoots the, the captain, doesn't he? The head of the, the actual human guy, the head of the an- the

Cris: The program,

Dan: And [00:13:00] there's just a f- couple of scientists

in,

in their kind of mobile scientific lab that, that's in a truck that they're driving along.

So now it becomes all about Dolph. And he's just hunting them down. As you say, he goes into a, a diner where-

Sidey: He's like a bear that's about to go hibernating. He ha- he can just eat forever. It

Dan: can't understand. Like he orders everything off the menu

Cris: it looks like he's never had food. Yeah. 'Cause the, the, the woman, the reporter, she's like, "Oh, I need to make these phone calls because they steal all the paperwork with all the information, which is vital because we're gonna go to Dr.

Gregor."

Dan: Yeah,

Cris: And,

Dan: And

Sidey: they

Cris: in the diner and she orders the two specials, not really interested in the food. Yeah. And obviously he has a Pepsi. Yeah. And then a lot more Pepsi. Like 20

Sidey: of Pepsi on the plate. Yeah. And

Cris: and then he just kinda starts eating and he realizes the taste of food. And mind you, this is just an on the side of the road American diner.

Dan: the universal eater

Cris: Yeah, I don't think this is a, it's a-

Sidey: not a gastro pub

Cris: exactly. And it's not

Sidey: Yeah. This is not [00:14:00] exactly- And it's not until, like, the 20th plate of food where the waitress says, "Have you got enough money to pay for all this?" And he just looks at her like, "What do you mean?"

Dan: do you mean?" What? Yeah, like money's just a, a concept. Hank, get out here, Hank the huge kind of chef. So

Sidey: thinking you can tell he's fucking jacked, right? He's there in a tank top. Tank

Cris: top, yeah. The

Sidey: Like- Also,

Dan: also I was thinking, like how is this... Like that guy has been cooking all the food.

Everybody else is having a nice meal, and he... Y- you're gonna come out going, "Oh, well done for beating everybody up." And

Sidey: And, like, he

Dan: all he wanted was getting paid for his work, like, you know, and, and having the food. But no, he... Anybody or any of the customers that think, "No, that... You're right. That, that is out of order.

I'm gonna come and, you know, w- you can't get away with that," he beats them up as well. Yeah He just goes absolutely rogue

Cris: twice, doesn't he? Yeah.

Dan: He's worse than Dolph at this stage. Dolph goes into a supermarket. Is this a little bit later on when he's, he's taken over and he's, there's one of them just having chunks of meat?

Cris: steak, yeah.

Sidey: [00:15:00] He's brought

Dan: in a couple of his buddies and, and taken them to the the freezer

Cris: them down,

Dan: cool them down to get some more universal soldiers regenerating their skin and everything, and and Dolph is actually in this scene, I think he's brilliant. He just goes around sort of owning the the, the floor space and doing a, a speech to the people and the soldiers

Sidey: and, Yeah.

It calls them all traitors. There's, there's a- Yeah ... gr- group of people just watching there

Dan: stunned, looking at him. Yeah And he's right in the grid of one guy, isn't he? He's going, "You traitorous..." Like, "Just say something.

Just say

Sidey: next time he's, he's holding him upside down when he cuts, cuts back to him.

Yeah. Yeah. Takes his belt.

Cris: Oh yeah, he like, "I like your belt." Okay.

Dan: And yeah, he's he's slowly getting his kind of, you know-

Sidey: But eventually he-

Dan: l- thirst back He

Sidey: he catches up with him, doesn't he? Yeah. He gets some big fucking, like 18-wheeler truck. Van Damme and her, I can't remember what they were driving.

Oh, no, they're, they've been caught. They're in a, a back of a sort of a correctional facility- Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah ... van. And there's a [00:16:00] police escort with them because they've been captured and put in this-

Dan: Wh- which was the, a good scene when they were captured, 'cause she was about to get on the bus and we all knew she wasn't gonna get on

Sidey: He's trying to fuck her off,

Dan: He's trying to fuck her off, right? Saying- He's saying, "Look- "... I'll

Sidey: for you. You need to go." And

Dan: he's after me. You go." And the bus pulls away, and she's still there at the bus stop, and he looks at her, and she looks at him, and goes, "Yeah." Basically, yeah

Sidey: He's thinking,

Dan: And then behind her there's,

Sidey: like- A million- ... the entire police squad ... a million

Dan: squad of about, yeah, 30 states or something all pointing their guns and cars and everything at him

Sidey: Yeah. So they get, they get p- handcuffed and put on this prison van basically.

Dan: basically On a long dusty road

Sidey: then Van, you just see, you just see,

Dan: And

Sidey: Dolph come, he- fucking hoofing it down the road. A bit like Terminator, Terminator 2- Yeah ... with the with the T-1000s in that big rig. And he's just fucking ramming things out of the way until he actually does them a solid and rams their wagon. Yeah.

Dan: Throwing grenades in there ... so Dolph,

Sidey: Dolph Van Damme's trying to get through to the driver or do something, and she's- Yeah ... chucking the grenades back out just in the nick of time. They're [00:17:00] blowing up just as she's chucking them out the window, and it culminates effectively with, It, well, Jean-Claude just like hoofs her out the window when they're doing about fucking 60 mile an hour.

I'm thinking they should probably be

Dan: "We're gonna jump together. We're gonna jump together."

Cris: And

Dan: pushes her-

Cris: her out. Yeah. I mean, they were doing

Sidey: fair lick. And then I think he jumps out just in time and that, and Dov's wagon go over a sort of cliff.

Dan: And everything explodes into a thousand pieces, and you think, "Oh my God, it's over."

Sidey: is over, but there's still a bit of time to go. But probably only enough time for the happy ending of her taking Jean-Claude back. His a- his name's Luke. He's got some funny name. It's Luke Devereaux. Yeah. And he takes Luke. He goes, "Luke, I'm gonna take you back, back home."

Cris: To Louisiana.

Sidey: which is gonna be a real head fuck for his parents because- He has an accent

he has that extra, say fucking 25 years older.

Dan: And he remember... He can't remember lots of things, but he remembers where he lives and, and they find it after day four or something on the run, isn't it? 'Cause it comes up with those timestamps every now and

Sidey: if it's [00:18:00] supposed to be significant to us

Dan: Yeah. All this is happening incredible, like, speed. And w-

Sidey: Well, we have what we have also... Or have we, have we not met him yet? The, the doctor who's behind- Yeah. They,

Cris: they did have a, a, a confrontation where they do go to see the doctor that created the program

Sidey: up with some sort of pseudoscience about-

Cris: he just says that, "Oh yeah, we discovered the way to pr- to regenerate tissue, and we realized that if you put this serum in, we, we can preserve the bodies and the mind or whatever."

Dan: reminded me a little bit of you know, Twins when Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito go to the doctor's there to find- Yeah

What happened to them. It was like- Yeah ... just finding that doctor who's turns around and remembers Fra- Luc and remembers, you know, the, the traumas and everything and, as you say, gives away some, some pseudoscience about how it has all happened. But Mum instantly recognize him, gives him a- Gives him-

a

Sidey: him a big hug- Yeah, course she does, because he's exactly the

Dan: 'Cause he's exactly the same ... 'cause he is exactly the same.

Sidey: a

Cris: [00:19:00] 'cause

Sidey: big hug. Yeah, so, got a question actually- I don't know what you were thinking, but I thought that their gaff was a little bit reminiscent of the Vietnamese village where it all went fucking Pete

Dan: Like a big sort of-

Sidey: Yeah. You

Dan: Yeah, they might have- Like a sort of

Sidey: sort of barnyard sort of vibe to

Dan: flashbacks there again, wouldn't he? And that's it.

It's a really nice tale. Dolph is, is dead. He's back at home. But wait, what's

Sidey: We never saw a dead body.

Dan: never saw a dead body. No. We never saw a dead body. Sergeant Andrew Scott is a Universal Soldier, and he doesn't give up that easy. He has roided himself up even more with the muscle serum that, Yeah, to enhance

Cris: enhance the

Dan: to enhance his powers. So now he's like a, the ultimate Universal Soldier. And he has found where Luc lives as well.

Sidey: got... She's in the car about to fuck off, isn't she? That's right. And- And he, he grabs her and takes her hostage.

Yeah.

Dan: And we- we're almost

Sidey: surely you... If, you know, he was mental as he is, you'd just execute her straight away.

Dan: and you just execute us wherever And it really gets Mum

Sidey: Yeah, Mum and Dad ... Mum and

Dan: as well, so they're all in there when it comes to the big fight in the barn. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: In the [00:20:00] rain.

Sidey: Yeah. He foolishly has an extra syringe of Mega Juice.

Yeah. Yeah. Of Mega Juice. Yeah. Which he's going to, in the midst of the fight, lose that, and Mr. Devereaux-

Dan: Is gonna inject

Sidey: takes full advantage. Yeah. He holds it up, the empty syringe, like, "Fuck you, dickhead." And then he fucking

Dan: kicks in straight away. Takes no time at all, this stuff. Yeah.

Sidey: It's,

Dan: it's like those those Lucozade tablets and things that you get, you know, for the- Yeah ... glucose energy. They just straight

Sidey: Gets to you thirst fast.

Dan: Gets you fast . And then we go on for this big, you know, the... It's typical Jean-Claude Van Damme stuff. There's spinning kicks, there's punches- Nice ... there's the split kicks where he's kicking to the head and, you know, you get to see him in perfect form. There's slow mo. There's this really spiky kinda machine you know that's gonna be at some point be the, the-

Sidey: the- Of course ... garden

Cris: Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: what, what [00:21:00] do they call that? It's,

Sidey: like a combine

Dan: like a combine. harvester. It's like a combine harvester, Yeah

Cris: Yeah, the harvester.

Because,

Dan: harvester ... it

Sidey: sort of goes-

Cris: and it's got spikes on it as well

Dan: and then it spits it all out.

So,

Sidey: The wood chipper, yeah.

Dan: the wood chipper, yeah

the wood chipper s- Yeah ... kind of element to it as well. And after a big fight in which she almost in the same as at the beginning is running away,

Sidey: it's a carbon copy, yeah

it's a carbon copy ... the, the, the grenade. He, he lobs the grenade out- Yeah ... and you think- No ... like Van Damme's literally on the floor exactly the same pose, exactly the same. You're like-

Dan: history repeating itself

Sidey: yeah ... not this time. No way.

Dan: But it looks, it looks pretty bad. And if it s- served any purpose, it, it meant that our hero just goes extra, extra tough and kicks... Even though that he has kicked every, you know, he's possibly killed a gas attendant, and he's also-

Sidey: he's also- He killed half a town

Dan: he- he's killed half, yeah, the, the, the town. But none of it can be blamed because it's, it's all part of the government program that- Yeah ... he never consented to be in. And he ends [00:22:00] up on the combine harvester getting wood chipped. One of

Sidey: because they, first of all, 'cause they, it's another, like, fake ending where he's impaled on the spikes. Yeah. And they're like, "Yes, fucking get in there. We killed him." Yeah. And he, he's there l- close enough that Dot's able to grab him, and he's, like, trying to pull his head down onto one of the spikes, and he's trying to push him away, and they just switch on the combine.

But they don't show you, like, him get mangled particularly. But they do say- You just see a bit of debris coming out of the... Yeah. ... the meat and stuff, yeah,

Cris: coming out,

Dan: in, in not that many one-liners, there's a few. One of the best ones right at the end there when she goes, "Where is he?" And he goes, "He's around." 'Cause he's obviously been just about everywhere.

And he goes to his mom and goes, "Don't worry about us, Son. We're, we're okay." And sort

Sidey: Yeah, absolutely no PTSD. Like, no, like-

Dan: they're absolutely fine.

Sidey: question about where the fuck your son's been for 25 years.

Cris: yeah. W- they've gotta

Dan: for another 25 years. Well, yeah. W- w- they've gotta answer all these questions later.

Cris: I had

Dan: questions.

Yeah. And, and that's pretty much it.

Sidey: That is it. Yeah. That is it now. Finally,

Dan: is it. We, we don't get any

Sidey: So it's a, it's a government sort of black op... Well, [00:23:00] it's not f- it's not official government, is it? It's some sort of black ops-

Dan: Yeah, this is CIA

Sidey: off the books thing.

But how could it ever be legit? 'Cause they would, you know, if you was to, "Oh, well, we'll send in the, the Unisols." They'd be like-

Dan: If it

Sidey: on. That, that guy's been dead for the last fucking 20 years." Yeah. Well, that's

Cris: they keep the press and everyone away, no? They

Sidey: It's n- it's gotta come out at some point, especially when they go mental like

Cris: Yes. Yeah.

Well, that's- Yeah

Dan: Well-

Cris: that's why these programs never

Dan: And to be honest, the people that were really pushing for it, they ended up dead as well, didn't they? Yeah ... the scientists,

Sidey: think everyone... Did the main doctor, the, the guy that they find,

Dan: Dr. Gregor.

Sidey: doctor called- Everyone. Everyone died.

They all died.

Dan: Only Dr. Gregor

Sidey: they can't... Oh, so he did make it.

Dan: So he was the one that's was brought into,

Sidey: You know,

Dan: bringing people back, and we realize if you freeze the blood and heat it up and something like that, then we can- Yeah ... you know, stabilize and bring them back.

Cris: but Dolph does show up at his gaff as well when, when they're there, no?

Does he not kill him there? I'm pretty sure he [00:24:00] does

Sidey: he would've done. He killed everyone.

Dan: He killed everyone. He killed everyone. Yeah.

Sidey: I'm

Cris: pretty sure he does. The,

Dan: this, to be fair to Dolph, I think is

Sidey: one of

Dan: his better films in, in the sense that he has a few scenes and he, you

Sidey: know- He has a few one-liners.

"I'm all ears," when he's got his- Yeah ... ear necklace.

Cris: necklace.

Yeah. It's not only that. Con- considering that Van Damme has about 12 words spoken in the whole film. Yeah. 'Cause obviously he, he's at the beginning when he speaks, he speaks a bit more, but the rest of the time he just has one word or he just stands there because

Sidey: 'Cause they're effectively robot sort of- Kind of-

undead ... hybrid, yeah. Yeah.

Cris: so he's not really saying much. Dolph Lundgren has the speeches and s- says a lot more, and he's like, "I

Dan: says

Sidey: a lot more, and he's like, "Oh, it's...

Cris: this is Lieutenant Scott's time now. You're all traitors," blah, blah, blah. So he, he does speak a lot more and is more acting than just being half robot.

Sidey: And th- they

Dan: have to address the accent as well.

She, she says at one point, "Where are you from?"

Cris: are you from?" Are you Canadian?

Dan: Canada,

Sidey: "Are you Canadian- ... France or

Dan: like that. And

Sidey: we- Well, he's Luc Devereux, so he's gotta be- Yeah. Well, we learn- It's [00:25:00] L-U-C. It's not L-U-C-K ... his mum- L-U-K ... mum

Dan: French,

Sidey: Yeah.

Cris: they're French. Yeah, because they, they speak French when he gets there.

He's like, they're Louisiana. That used to be the last stronghold of the French, you know?

Dan: there we go. A history lesson too. W- was it a, a sweet return to this movie

Cris: know what? I, I used to have this on VHS.

Dan: on VHS. I- Really? Yeah ... this

Cris: amazing. Every Van Damme film. Back home, these were the films.

Kickboxer. Yeah. Blood Sport ... Blood Sport. This one. Commando with Schwarzenegger.

Dan: Double Impact- Double Impact ... was

Cris: Impact. Total Recall. These ones were the ones that we would have. We, they would be in our little community in the building where we lived. Yeah. Everyone had one or two of these VHS tapes. Share around.

And we would just share them around, and honestly, we would have them every other, every four days. We'd be like, "Should we watch the Van Damme one?" Yeah. "Should we watch the..." So this would be-

Dan: It's bread and butter stuff, isn't it? Oh, it's- You know, for Van Damme ... yeah, it's... He met, he was stopped in

Cris: yeah. It was ama- and it was dubbed in Romanian by this lady, and all the words were, [00:26:00] "Go to hell."

Yeah. But she would say it in a, "Go to hell." Yeah. There wouldn't be any, any, any change of the tone. She would translate like she would be reading us, you know, with- without any - without her almost watching the film, right?

Dan: Bit in

Sidey: Supposedly Van Damme and and Dolph hated each other, but then they later on said that that was all just kind of like- Well, they had a, a play fight like, Yeah, it was publicity

Dan: on, on

Sidey: on

Dan: red carpet they pushed each other and everything- Okay ... and it just got attention. But they did say later, yeah,

Sidey: was- It was just for

Dan: it was just for publicity. Right. Okay. But they played it out as, as two, Enemies

two enemies, that's right. Yeah, I... You know, the... You know what you're getting into when you're going for these- Oh ... '90s action films. And there's, there's a lot of, It's very easy to, to like poke fun at them and, and do the things. But for me, Dolph and Van Damme here probably peak of their powers, the, the pair of them.

Yeah. And the, the

Sidey: fight scenes-

Dan: things are, are [00:27:00] pretty good. There's no... You know, practical effects when they're running down the, the dam there, that is- Yeah ... people that are kind of running down. Actually running, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's, So things like that hold up a little bit better. Budget

Sidey: was 23 million.

Cris: It would've been big then, yeah.

Sidey: What do we think?

Dan: that is a, that... I think it would've made

Cris: Oh, it would've made money, you

Dan: Damme was big at the time.

Sidey: Both of them. Yeah.

Cris: Plus there was

the,

the guy from Friday. The big Black guy from Friday, the, that's, that plays Tiny in in Friday. Have you ever seen

Dan: Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah. He's

Cris: big,

the big boy. And the other, the gigantic Universal Soldier, he was in Conan, he was in The Gladiator, he was in loads of...

He's another one

Sidey: that's kinda...

Cris: kinda... So there's, there's a few of these action kind of

Actors.

Sidey: I

Cris: it made money. This is, this was a cult classic.

Sidey: 120 mil. Yeah. So yeah, it made some spondulees. I d- so I think I sort of deliberately stayed away from it at the time, 'cause it seemed like a kind of shit [00:28:00] RoboCop.

Action, action trash, yeah. You know, like someone dies, bring them back or something. You know, replace cop with soldier. But I was also, I also like Van Damme, so I should've just watched it 'cause it was good fun. Yeah. I enjoyed

Cris: Oh

Sidey: yeah. He's, he's- I prefer, like, out and out just Van Damme kung fu movies.

Yeah.

Dan: Your Bloodsport is, is still, you

know,

Sidey: And Kickboxer ... I think Kickboxer.

Dan: one

Cris: right trying to reven- avenge his brother. Tong

Sidey: is the one. 'Cause Kickboxer's the one with his brother. He's trying to reven- avenge his brother. Tong Po,

Cris: the guy with the thing, yeah.

Sidey: he's got the, the-

Cris: they do the... Yes. Yeah, yeah. And, and he's dancing drunk in Thailand.

Oh, it's amazing. Honestly,

Dan: did a f- was

Sidey: it Foreign Legion? I think you see his ass in that one as well, don't you? Pardon? Do you see his ass in that

Cris: Yes. Yeah, because- When he does the splits ... yeah, when

Dan: think Foreign Legion was one he did as well. French Foreign Legion. That

Cris: that's a bit later. Right. That was already, he was already a bit later. That, these ones are the, the

Sidey: peak. Well, I,

Dan: I s- I started to have a look around at some of his, his best moments on, on YouTube, and one of the things that came up was a little spat he had with Steven Seagal- Oof

About [00:29:00] who would be the... And the- these two really didn't like each other very

Sidey: I don't think anyone likes Seagal,

Cris: Seagal. No. Sensei. Well, you can't argue with Sensei. Seagal really fancied himself

Dan: as-

Sidey: Still does

Dan: and yeah. I think he's in Russia now-

Sidey: Yeah, he does- Talking about- ... does, does bits in North Korea as well, doesn't he?

I think. Yeah. He's completely loony.

Dan: well, didn't he?

I think. Yeah. Complete loony. He's, he's gone well off the, the charts. Whereas when Van Damme was interviewed, he'd always stay on the fence and be quite polite. He'd say, "Oh, you know, I wouldn't wanna say, I think it, you know... We'll ask the audience, you know, if who, who's gonna be, be best." Whereas Seagal would just be laughing and, you know,

Sidey: "Pfft.

Dan: "There."

It's just such disrespect from him. Yeah ... he really did fancy himself big time. So definitely out of the action heroes of the '90s, Van Damme-

Cris: is up there

Dan: he,

he's, yeah, 120 million.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: That's big bucks

Cris: Did you enjoy this your

Sidey: first time? I did enjoy it, yeah.

I did enjoy it. Yeah. It's, it's- There's a load of sequels, which I don't think I'm gonna go down that road.

Cris: Yeah, there's quite a [00:30:00] few

Sidey: There's like three or four of them, I think. There's

Cris: four, yeah, yeah. Because there's like the Reckoning Day. Yeah. There's all, all these, yeah.

Sidey: I don't enjoy it enough to want to go down the-

the lower budget, sort of trashier ones. But this, for me, is a strong recommend. Oh, yeah.

Dan: Go for it.

Cris: Yeah