Eye Candy #216 - "Replicant" (The Damme #10)

Replicant:  It wouldn’t be a hard sell to say that The Damme has starred in more movies as identical twin brothers/people than any other actor on the planet. Off the top of my head, I can give you three. “Replicant” is a new riff on the same old tune – the serial killer The Torch (The Damme, in extensions that make him look like the late Michael Hutchence from INXS) has been killing women all over Seattle, typically targeting “bad mothers”, who he kills and then sets on fire. His main nemesis in law enforcement is Jake Riley (Michael Rooker), a Seattle cop on the verge of retirement. After a particularly close encounter with Ze Torch (because I can’t say that name without thinking of “Top Secret!”), Rooker is recruited by the extra-governmental National Security Division (not the NSA) to train and guide a clone of Ze Torch (also played by The Damme) that they created, so that they can use whatever innate knowledge he may have of his “brother” to catch him before he kills again. And while Riley has some initial misgivings about the clone, they eventually form a “buddy” bond to help fight Ze Torch. This is the second pairing of The Damme and HK action director Ringo Lam (he also gave us “Maximum Risk”, one of the other Damme Duo movies). This film is better than that film, but since that film was almost complete garbage, that is not a glowing testimonial. For a sci-fi film, the science here is tissue-paper thin and COMPLETELY ignored (you want to know how they cloned Ze Torch? Too bad, because they ain’t telling). The Damme is good as the clone, who is very childlike and naïve, while Rooker runs through his standard angry cop routine (see also “The Replacement Killers”). There are so many other Damme movies that are worse than this one, but this is far from being his best work. Woodchuck sez, “Watchable but not really good.”