Review and news hub for movies, music and video games

J.C.V.D., while not without its share of action scenes, is pretty obviously not your typical Jean-Claude Van Damme film. There are a lot of hints to this, but chief among them is that it garnered critical acclaim both for the film and Van Damme himself. The poor guy is often associated with cheesy, ridiculous action flicks and if you think it's not a daunting task to separate from that image, you only have to look at J.C.V.D.'s Region 2 cover.

Explosions! Fireballs! Flipping cars! Helicopter! Things that are nowhere in the film at all! This is hilarious to me. Some poor sap at the video store is going to expect a different film from what it is, and judging from message board comments, he's not alone.

For comparison, here are some recent covers to direct-to-video Van Damme movies. See if you can tell this isn't in the same vein:

Even the tagline is misleading. With a city against him and his back to the wall? Van Damme has to be himself? That movie sounds badass, but I know it's not this film. So much for that credibility.