By Geno McGahee
I have to learn to not get so excited over things. When I first heard that there was a remake or re-imagining of the 1989 classic “KICKBOXER” that included Jean-Claude Van Damme with WWE superstar, Dave Bautista, I was optimistic. When I saw the trailer, I was stoked. I love the KICKBOXER movies. I even love the ones that featured Sasha Mitchell and Marc Dacascos. It’s hard to go wrong with a kickboxer movie, but KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE found a way.
Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi) is out for revenge. His brother, Eric (Darren Shahlavi), went against his advice and went to Thailand to face off against Tong Po (Bautista). I like Bautista, but it was difficult to accept him as a fighter from Thailand. They should have said he moved there and insists that he is from Thailand and nobody has the balls to tell him any different. Anyway, Eric, who we see for about thirty seconds, enters the ring in this underground fighting promotion, and is no match for Po. To the shock of Kurt, his brother is murdered in the ring and now he must plan his revenge. OK, a big problem immediately is that neither Eric or Tong Po are established as good fighters. Eric is punching some boxing mitts in the ring and then is approached by Marcia (Gina Carano), a promoter, and offered the bout. In the original, we began with Eric kicking ass and defending his kickboxing world title. He was seen as unbeatable and went to Thailand to prove that it translated worldwide. Here, you are asked to just fill in the blanks.
To beat Tong Po, Kurt goes to visit trainer, Durand (Van Damme), and the endless training montages begin. To the credit of Van Damme, he sells the shit out of this role. He could have still brought it and I began to think about how nice it would have been if Van Damme reprised his role as Kurt Sloane for a return to this series. Alain Moussi isn’t bad in this role, but there is no “IT factor” here at all, and he didn’t have much to work with.
As Kurt trains, the authorities are trying to shut down this underground fighting. Liu (Sara Malakul Lane), the lead detective, falls for Kurt, and now wants to not only shut down Marcia’s fight club but wants to protect him. A lot of this film is not in English and they use subtitles, which is fine, but they do it in an annoying way that was probably an artistic decision. The text will appear at different parts of the screen with certain words highlighted. I’m sure there’s something to it. I’m sure if you put all the highlighted words together, you get a secret message, but I didn’t care enough to go back with my trusty notepad and pen to decode it. I’m sure my message was “aren’t you glad you paid 20 dollars for the Blu-ray of this? LOL. Gotcha!”
The fight is agreed to, but Liu locks up Kurt and Durand in hopes of stopping the fight. They break out, beat a bunch of cops up, and then fight some more in the streets, knocking them through glass that was being carried around by some glass installers, I guess. They get to the arena and the fight begins with three planned rounds. First round, just a fight. Second round, a fight with broken glass on their fists. Third round, they fight with swords. Where is the kickboxing in this? Bautista has done some mixed martial arts, but you don’t see any of it here. He just holds up his hands and slaps Kurt around. Kurt does some kickboxing moves, I guess, but at least the original KICKBOXER stayed true to the sport and had that spectacle to it. This film was more like Van Damme’s THE QUEST, but it had zero personality or character development.
SPOILER…I’m sure you would have figured this out. Kurt beats Tong Po and ends up killing the guy. In retrospect, this makes a great deal of sense if you know the series. Tong Po lost to Kurt (Van Damme) in 1989, but then came back to kill him and his brother, Eric (Dennis Alexio), and that wasn’t enough for him. Nope. He would rape Kurt’s girlfriend and also rape and kill David Sloane’s (Sasha Mitchell) wife, before setting him up and putting him prison. Had Kurt killed Po when he had a chance, none of that would have happened. So, I guess this remake had it right with this ending. Po isn’t going to be starting any shit, but then again, this Po didn’t have the presence that the original did.
KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE is terrible. There was plenty of focus on the presentation. It was a beautiful looking film, but they stayed away from the formula that made the first so special. There was no fun factor and there was ZERO character development. There was no huge sense of accomplishment when Tong Po was defeated because he was never established as a force. He beat Eric. OK. All I know is that Eric hit punch mitts rather well, but he could have been a big pussy. The fight scenes are done well, but they don’t hold true to the kickboxer theme. It had a budget. They could have afforded an arena and filled it with extras. Extras work for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bottled water. Eric should have beat some guy’s ass to the surprise of everyone. “Oh my god. Eric beat that guy? That guy was super tough. Eric is the biggest badass ever.” Then you have Marcia walk up and throw down the challenge. At least then you know that Eric can fight and beating Tong Po would mean something.
Another thing. Tong Po is rather honorable in this. He’s not a villain really. He’s a fighter that does fight to the death, but he’s not the cheating rapist that the first one was. This guy is just looking to turn a buck and show that he can fight. Kurt should have blamed his brother for taking the fight under the rules he did. The announcer says that it’s a “fight to the death” at jump. Kurt should have screamed at him to back out, but he may have assumed that Eric, at the most, would end up in a wheelchair. After all, that happened in the first.
What a mess. What a disappointing mess. It had a good cast and had me waiting in line to buy it. Considering I was the only one in the line, that should have been a sign.
Rating: 2.5/10 – Van Damme was good.
