Double Impact (1991) -- Two Kicks for the Price of One

Tatonka Rating: 4.0
Director: Sheldon Lettich
Writer: Sheldon Lettich, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes

Theme Song: “Feel the Impact,” Performed by Gen



Actual Tagline(s) … (Because a Twin Movie Should Have TWO): “One Packs a Punch. One Packs a Piece. Together, They Deliver.”

“Two Brothers Separated by the Violence. Now Together in a Mission of Revenge.”

What I Remember the Tagline Being: “Twice the Van Dammage.”
Suggested Tagline: “… Like Jean-Claude Van Damme Having Sex with Himself.”



CAST:

Jean-Claude Van Damme (Muscles from Brussels), as Chad Wagner, aka, “Mr. California, Mr. Silk Underwear.”



Unshaven Jean-Claude Van Damme, as Alex Wagner



Geoffrey Lewis as Frank Avery, the guy that can insert “fuck” into just about every sentence (in real life, he is also Juliette Lewis’ father)

Cory Everson as Danielle, the person who most acutely feels the Van Damme double-team action in this movie.

THE PLOT:



Double Impact is a double-the-pleasure movie from that 90’s that took four whole people to write and proves Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD) is the King of getting inappropriately over-enraged and over-excited about nothing in particular. This action-packed movie was also clearly sponsored by the belt industry and the makers of high-waisted pants.



Throughout Double Impact, JCVD proves that when you have two chances to suck, you can really do it up right. The movie is essentially comprised of a collection of uncomfortable extreme close-up shots of him checking out mentally interspersed with a lot of bewildering high kicks.

To be honest, for the first ten minutes, I wasn’t sure I was watching the right movie. We find ourselves in Hong Kong (potentially really the hills of Southern California) witnessing a vague political event involving the creation of the Hong Kong Island Tunnel in the 60’s, orchestrated by twins Alex and Chad Wagner’s father in a ceremony attended by a small collection of movie extras. As the family leaves, they give their body guard, Frank (Lewis) the night off, thus causing them to be killed after thousands of failed shots from 100 or so Chinese wielding what appear to be red paint guns amidst an assault of tom-tom-intensive, violin-riddled elevator music. One of the twins is kidnapped, though Frank is able to save Chad, who he takes back to California by boat after being shot by the main villain who has been confusingly shot in the face (possibly by his own henchmen). From this bloody scene, we learn that the second you take a night off from being a body guard in an action movie, unless you are JCVD, your charges are immediately brutally slain, and you can do nothing at all about it.

(DISCLAIMER: Because the director/producer didn’t bother to provide any English subtitles for the Chinese spoken in this movie – either out of respect for the culture, or more likely, because they are not actually speaking Chinese – my plot interpretation is loose, at best.)

In any good twin movie, one half of the twin set has to be raised by nuns, causing that twin to develop a massive chip on his shoulder. However, 25 years after the horrific slaying of the twins’ parents, the first one we meet as an adult is supposedly well-adjusted, over-sexed Chad in California.

As we learn more about Chad and wish someone had told the movie's music supervisor to take it easy on the synthesizer, we are left wondering which is more unbelievable – Jean Claude being 25 in 1991, or the character Chad building a fortune by teaching aerobics and karate. Regardless, his wardrobe was clearly selected based on what would make his ass look most like two ham hocks wrestling.



(The above picture has been minimized for your protection.)

After almost getting beaten up by an entire karate class (the members of which object to his choice of blue spandex as much as we do), he is told by a now older Frank (who finds out Chad’s twin is still alive while he is inappropriately massaging some of his students) that he needs to go to Hong Kong for undisclosed reasons. This prompts JCVD to change into an outfit that makes him look like he mugged Don Ameche in Cocoon.

Once Chad reunites with his twin Alex, we realize that the only thing they have in common is their high kick and their need to call attention to the extreme size of their penises. We also discover that you need more than a little luck to successfully explain a conspiracy theory to one JCVD, let alone two.

Alex, the evil twin, does dastardly things like provide the nice people of China with pretty cars and American cigarettes. He is also so badass that when on a boat, he can just look at people sideways, and they decide to immediately jump overboard while screaming.

A Tribute to JCVD’s Sarcastic, Ineffectual Punchlines in Double Impact:

“Nice going?! Nice going, my ass! I almost got killed!”

“Hey – can this piece of shit move any faster?”

“Welcome to Hong Kong.” (Delivered by Alex after throwing a Mercedes emblem from a blown-up car at his brother, Chad.)

(Chad, referring to the soup he is eating) – “What’s it supposed to do … make my dick bigger?”

(Chad, Right before getting kicked in the nuts) – “You go fuck yourself.”

(Alex, talking about Chad) – “Big kiss? I’ll give him a big kick in the ass, that’s what I’ll give him!”

And, the most offensive Jean-Claude Van Damme line ever delivered (by Alex), and potentially why we really don't see him in movies anymore:

“Maybe I’m drunk, tomorrow I’ll be sober, but he’ll always be a faggot.”

In general, the ass kicking in Double Impact takes a while to get started. With double the potential Van Dammage, you’d think they’d want to get it started right away, but they really make us wait for it. However, once it's on, it's ON, and we get a taste of what JCVD clearly believes about himself – that he is a better martial artist than all of China. Eventually we also discover that if you’re going to get high-kicked by JCVD in slow motion, put water in your mouth first to increase the drama.

The slightly bumbling Chad provides a nice reward for those of us that have been frustrated by JCVD’s inability to get very hurt in any of his movies. Watching him get repeatedly nailed in the nuts while wearing pleated Dockers will be one of the most satisfying experiences of your life, especially after watching him carefully drag his garment bag everywhere to protect his rockin’ 90’s wardrobe.

One of the most unique characteristics about Jean-Claude is his signature scream, which is offered up in great supply throughout Double Impact. It’s basically like an Arnold Schwarzenegger scream, if Arnold ate more bran and spoke slightly better English.



At one point, there is an interchange between the brothers that was probably repeated after production wrapped whenever JCVD thought about this movie while he was looking in the mirror:

CHAD: “Hey bro! We did it!”
ALEX: “Did what? You fucked up!”

In terms of sexual tension in Double Impact, it is most strongly felt in interactions between Jean-Claude Van Damme and himself. Of course, whenever any woman is around JCVD, her clothes fall off inexplicably and her hair dries seconds after swimming (undoubtedly, food also loses its taste and birds sing). However, the only sex scene – between Chad and Danielle, Alex’s girlfriend – looks like it was ripped uncomfortably from a naked production of the “Blue Man Group.” Thankfully, we get a great interplay between Chad and Danielle having sex on a boat and Alex somehow knowing through twin intuition they are having sex, knowledge that causes him to randomly punch everything in sight and shoot bourbon angrily out his nose.

A good twin action movie would be nothing without the main actor epically kicking his own ass at some point, and we get that in spades in this movie. They eventually reconcile after Chad proves his total confusion over geography and threatens to swim from Hong Kong to California (and truly believes he can do it) and join forces to totally kick everything in sight for the last 10 minutes.

Biggest Lesson Learned: If you see an Asian falling from a great height, JCVD was probably responsible.

Fun Trick: If you listen to Double Impact without watching it, you get a pretty close approximation of what it would sound like if JCVD could really have sex with himself.

Your Official Ending Spoiler:



Review by Julia Rogers

The Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley: The Case of the Sea World Adventure (1995)

Tatonka Rating: 4.0
Director: Neal Israel
Writer: Neal Israel (teleplay), Arnold Margolin (screenplay, story)
Actual Tagline: “Will Solve Any Case by Dinnertime.”
Suggested Tagline: “Will Do Anything for a Buck.”



Cast:

Mary Kate Olsen, as the Rebellious, Doesn’t-Give-a-Shit One

Ashley Olsen, as the Stuck-Up, Old-Lady-Hat-Wearing, Is-Afraid-of-Everything One

Tracy Nelson, as the fake mom (you might remember her as daughter of Ricky Nelson and the one that played a nun on the deuce-worthy television series Father Dowling Mysteries with Tom Bosley)

William R. Moses, as the dreamy fake dad (who has over 90 TV movies under his belt, usually playing the fake dad in those too)

An Additional Unnamed Cast of a Handful of Idiots with No Acting Skills or Dance or Musical Talent Whatsoever

The Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley: The Case of the Sea World Adventure is one of many mistakes made by the guardians of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in the 1980’s and 90’s and explains why so many people age 18-25 are despised by older generations.

Despite being a quasi musical, no one was willing to take credit for having written the songs. The theme song, which apparently provides an opening for all parts of this episodic movie series is best listened to after imbibing a vat of malt liquor purchased from your local registered sex offender-staffed convenience store … or after smoking a pound of crack:



The story of this particular movie begins when the Olsen Twins’ fake parents – who are marine biologists at Sea World in Orlando, Florida (who we’d like to especially thank for endorsing this particular cinematic bowel movement) – invent a way to talk to dolphins. Their discovery is in great part thanks to their love of neglecting their children, who after a hard day of aggressively interrogating birds and Sea World mascots with their basset hound “Clue” still cannot find a plot for this movie.

While they are being babysat/harassed by and also criticizing two mimes named Flippy and Bobo in one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, the twins almost miss their daily dose of child abuse – performing dressed as penguins for tourists in the dolphin show. (Perhaps the only thing I have in common with Mary-Kate and Ashley is their hatred of mimes and the pleasure they get from verbally abusing them.)

The movie really starts to hit its stride once Mary-Kate and Ashley rap (because they can’t sing worth a damn) in penguin suits as dolphins do their bidding. Winning lyrics from their musical extravaganza include those found in a quirky back-and-forth between the sisters, which throws you into a tailspin because you pretty much can’t tell them apart without their signature hats:

Sister 1: “I said, go.”
Sister 2: “I said, whoa.”
Sister 1: “I said, play.”
Sister 2: “I said, hey.”

The song reaches Shakespearean levels when it collapses onto itself like a dying star with “Hey comma comma c’mon, comma comma c’mon let’s jump the moon/We’re so much in tune I want to flip.”



Their public humiliation complete, the twins go onto their next fit babysitter, a maniacal 30-something woman (who must be a recurring character in the series) who tells them a story about a girl named Cindy and some pizzas … and an old lady that shoves gingerbread into someone’s face before or after seeing some gerbils. While she is talking, they drift off and rudely interrupt her by doing what they do for most of this particular episode – talking about not having a case to solve and illegally spying on people.

A seeming non-sequeter (until the very end), the twins’ parents’ boss tells them they better take a vacation or he’s going to call child welfare on them for forcing their children to have to pretend to be detectives instead of behaving like normal children (or at least he implies he’s going to take some drastic measures to get them to stop working). Thankfully, he never really makes good on his threat, as he depends on the twins for entertainment, provided in great supply when he makes up fake cases for them to solve that almost get them killed, raped or kidnapped on his days off.

The twins finally find a case about 15 minutes into the episode when they discover what they think is a corpse in the woods (yep!) and are thrilled to report it. As they are running off to tell a local policeman, the dead body gets up and leaves a wallet behind, which they find when they come back to nothing.

As they are following the clues (which lead them on a trip up in the Sea World Sky Tower), we learn something that might have helped us take down the Olsen Empire before it became catastrophically problematic: Ashley is deathly afraid of heights.*

The Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley: The Case of the Sea World Adventure takes a turn towards Weekend at Bernie’s until the bitter end, when the twins start seeing a woman parading the corpse in a trench coat around Sea World, taking it on rides and generally pretending it is alive and having one hell of a good time.

And now a break for “Precious Moments to Support Good Parenting in The Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley: The Case of the Sea World Adventure”

1. At one point, Mary-Kate declares, before doing one of many dangerous things that will lead to being kidnapped and becoming a hot commodity in human trafficking, “We’re detectives … detectives never think about safety.”

2. The twins flirt with the idea of taking a cab with a stranger, but their plan is thwarted not because of safety concerns, rather because they can’t afford it.

Their poor choices lead them to become buskers singing tribute songs to Miami (where they are trying to go). Fortunately, they meet a steel drum band that is willing to put their ramblings to music, dress up in whorish Flamenco outfits and combine forces to sing about Pastrami, Afro Cuban music and Key Lime Pie. Of course, random crowd people start helping them by doing a dance that looks to have been choreographed by Ed Grimley, but really wants to be an exact replica of the stairs dance scene during the big parade in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.



Thankfully, people in Miami are more than willing to pay top dollar for high-quality, live kiddy porn and the duo makes $98.50, enough to hire a limo to drive them to Miami.

And then, this movie goes one place with a dead body that Weekend at Bernie’s never went – a Carnival Cruise ship (but I’m betting Carnival wouldn’t have had the balls to capitalize on the death of Terry Kiser).

All-in-all, this is a great series to watch when you’re deliriously sick and stuck at home with nothing but Netflix instant watch by your side. It would also be fuel for a really high-volume drinking game.

PLOT SPOILER, so you can avoid watching this entirely: The dead body is Flippy the mime, and Bobo is a transvestite.

BONUS: It’s only 28 minutes long, and there’s a blooper reel at the end.

Reviewed by Julia Rogers

*If an Olsen Twin is pushed off a cliff, and there is no one around to hear it, does she still make a sound?

Stranger with My Face (2009)

Tatonka Rating: 2.0
Director: Jeff Renfroe
Writer: Based on the Book by Lois Duncan



Lifetime Movie Network’s Film Synopsis: After the shocking and untimely death of her husband, Shelley Stratton (Catherine Hicks) moves her daughter Alexis (Emily Hirst) and her adopted daughter, Laurie (Alexz Johnson), to their remote summer house in hopes of giving her family a fresh start. As Laurie begins to settle in and put her life back together, she gets the eerie feeling that she is constantly being watched. Laurie's uneasiness grows when people start claiming to see her in places that she has never been. The family’s delicate state begins to unravel when Laurie unearths the dark past, discovering a twin-sister that she never knew she had. Laurie is forced to delve deeper into her twin’s secrets, for as it turns out her twin has been locked up for years! Laurie must now understand their strange connection in order to prevent her sister from taking over her life and harming her loved ones. Based on the book by author Lois Duncan.

My Film Synopsis: After the chick from Devil’s Diary’s father dies (in this movie named “Laurie" instead of "Dominique"), she moves to the island where her family has a summer house. She has a hard time making friends, because all the boys she made out with during summer break really didn’t expect to have to see her at school every day (and now they have to explain who she is to their girlfriends). After telling everyone else in the world except Laurie that she is adopted, her mother (the nice lady from 7th Heaven who has been playing a mom in movies and on television since she could speak) finally tells her the truth, and supernatural hijynx ensue.

Suggested Tagline: “Because Your Twin is a Crazy Slut …”

Stranger with My Face is an evil twin movie with a twist that was pretty disappointing in terms of being really entertainingly bad until about the last hour, and also in no way followed the book I remember. In the book, the main character finds out she has Native American roots, which helps to explain the spiritual aspect and makes it a much more interesting story (and can you imagine the magical crap Lifetime could’ve spun out with some clichéd Native American folklore? Even one tomahawk would’ve gone a long way).

The first thing I noticed was the score, which was most likely royalty free and also sounded like a sampling of variations on the Law and Order theme song … or the soundtrack from one of two hundred romantic mystery comedies starring Julia Roberts.

As the movie begins, we get about one minute of plot set-up; we see the main character, 16-year old Laurie painting in her living room (which is apparently in a large city … which can only mean we’re in New York City, as we learn later) and visited spiritually by her father seconds before he dies when he is hit by a car just outside. I do appreciate how fitting it is that Lifetime killed off the father (who did not die in the book), because we need him gone to understand that women are much more powerful when they’re on the loose.

The great lesson learned immediately (and never really recanted or revisited) is, “When your husband dies, the right thing to teach your children is that you need to run from your problems in order to be happy again.” The family packs up their apartment in New York and heads for their summer home on an unnamed island. We are reminded of how painful death is (and why running is justified) when they arrive to find family photos (that look like they came with the frame or a wallet) at their new home.

The first night in their new home establishes that every single night on this island is so stormy that the power goes off, and they search for batteries, only to find the opportunity to tell us for the first time what the now dead father did for a living; because they find fully-charged batteries for which he was responsible, they remark, “He was pretty practical for an artist.” As we know, typically artists can’t even figure out how to put their pants on the right way, often needing to be taken care of by other people who are charged with changing their diapers, providing them with clean drool cups, etc.

The story progresses at a snail’s pace, and we realize that Laurie has been seen quite a bit in town when she hasn’t even left her bedroom. She’s even accused of hooking up with the school cripple in a boat house. If you’re going to have an astrally-projecting twin sister, you better hope she’s not a total skank, or that she has good taste.

Laurie starts to sort of make friends on her first day and befriends Helen, the school deviant, played by an actress who might turn into Shannen Doherty in 30 years. Helen’s rebellious acts include reading true crime novels on the steps when she’s supposed to be in class and acting as an armchair psychologist for anyone that tries to befriend her. She also gives Laurie permission to “go nuts,” which she seems to follow for the rest of the movie. Despite only being in the movie (at least awake and not in a coma) for about 10 minutes, she is Laurie’s best friend in the world.

I have to hand it to LMN for saving money on production costs by re-using teen couples from other Lifetime movies. Laurie hooks up with Jeff, played by the actor who was also Alexz Johnson’s one-dimensional male counterpart in Devil’s Diary. Do I smell an epic serial romance a la Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks? I think maybe there was a sale on creepy location rentals and they just decided to film two movies in one shot.

The most confusing element of this movie is its time line. I would expect some confusion of place and time, given there is a major focus on astral projection, but we never get deep enough into a traditional plot to understand how the plot gets screwy. At one point, as Laurie is going to meet Helen near the cliff outside her house, she sees herself (her twin) on the rocks. As she walks further to find Helen, she says, “Earlier tonight, I thought I saw someone on the rocks that looked just like me.” Earlier tonight as in 30 seconds ago? Most likely this type of definition of time is what makes the plot drag.

Not only does the plot not make any sense, but the mother is largely unresponsive to major events, even when Laurie is suspected of trying to strangle her sister Alex in her sleep. Whether it’s bad writing or Catherine Hicks’ complete resignation to the fact that she’s never going to have a real career, she is barely awake in most of her scenes. Her revelation to Laurie about her adoption is also treated by her as a non-event, and she explains that they left her twin behind because they were dirt poor and essentially could only afford to buy one baby.

One of the most entertaining things about this movie is the way it bases all its male characterizations on blatant stereotypes. Gordon, the douchey school stud, is the ultimate panty peeler. In order to seduce Laurie, he uses clever phrases like, “You’d rather curl up with that book instead of me?” He also tries to get her to succumb by attempting to convince her that his desire to do so is motivated by wanting to take her mind off her troubles and heal her pain. If Laurie’s twin hadn’t thrown him across the room from the next dimension, he certainly would’ve tried, “If you don’t do me, my balls will fall off and I will die,” or “If a guy stays a virgin too long, his penis explodes.”

Jeff is another excellent stereotype; the misunderstood, damaged (in this case, crippled) boy that seems to be bad but is actually good. He is also a vehicle for showing how boys (especially the cute ones) prevent girls from having super powers; Leah tells Laurie that Jeff is in the way of her truly being able to astral project. Jeff is entertaining because he does intelligent, completely logical things like walking to Laurie’s house in the middle of the night along a busy highway and hanging out in deserted places alone or standing near cliffs when he’s almost been killed by the soul of his girlfriend’s twin four or five times.

Another thing this movie does well is avoid explaining complicated topics. If you don’t want to explain astral projection, all you have to do is show a montage of a character reading every book under the sun about it. We see Laurie learning everything she can about astral projection at the school library; when she pretends she doesn’t know what her twin Leah is talking about later, Leah simply calls her on it and we then don’t have to ever know what astral projection really means or any details about it beyond the generic. We just have to trust that someone else in the movie understands the concept and will lead us down the right path.

The movie doesn’t really get entertaining until Leah convinces Laurie to astral project so she can take over her body. And she does really dastardly things when she gets in there. Her evil deeds include, making breakfast for Laurie’s family, making friends with popular girls at school by giving them compliments about their outfits, trying to sleep with hot guys that like her and trying to fix Laurie’s reputation for being a total nutbag around school by behaving like a normal teen girl.

If you can make it through the first hour and a half, this movie gets pretty good, especially if you have Schadenfreude badly enough that you might enjoy watching a crippled boy get beaten by a semi-ghost with his own cane.

Reviewed by Julia Rogers

Next Week: A Double Dose of Deuce!

We're thrilled to announce a very special week-long event coming up in just TWO days at Movie Deuce. Saturday, August 29th - Friday, September 5th is officially Double Deuce Week; we'll be celebrating the best, worst movies featuring your very favorite twins!



The party will start off right Saturday night with the world premiere of LMN's new original movie Stranger with My Face at 8 p.m. EST, based on the teen thriller (remember when people used to write books?) by Lois Duncan and starring perpetual mom Catherine Hicks (from Child's Play and one of the most generically-Jesus-infused television shows ever, Seventh Heaven) and Lifetime veteraness Alexz Johnson (of Final Destination 3 and the movie that broke the Tatonka rating scale, Devil's Diary).



We'll continue throughout the week with a different review of a twin-injected movie EVERY SINGLE DAY. Keep your plate empty for double helpings of wacky hyjinx, evil deeds and high-kicking, hard-punching action ... and very likely a heaping side of Guttenberg.



Help us harness the power of two ... don't miss Saturday's riveting premiere!