Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

guisreis The main character is a boxer who made a deal but at the very moment refused to dive on the ring and needs to flee (poor "The harder they fall"...). Van Damme, the French boxer, enters the Foreigh Legion in order to escape the mob. The film is a mix of a much worsened version of the mentioned classic movie starred by Humphrey Bogart, a bit of a bastard version of "Full metal jacket" and, off course, a Van Damme movie, with all those silly jokes, an unconvincing romance, bad acting, shots and fights. These are particularly bad not for themselves, but because there was ridiculously no concern to make the main character fight as a boxer when brawling. He defends himself as a karate master instead of parrying as boxers do, and he attacked by wrestling instead of punching! Even though the boxing fight happened only in the beginning of the film, it would be expected that being a boxer would be a trait of the character that would appear in many moments. Well, it would happen in a serious film. Off course there was no serious intention of showing how Foreign Legion worked either. Even as a childish entertainment, "Legionnaire" does not succeed as it is boring.

The Grand Master Legionnaire was an action drama which did not showcase Jean Claude Van Damme's trademark 360 kicks and instead tried to show that Van Damme can actually act. This movie had the potential to take off and be a decent movie, instead the end result just fell flat. It was hard to get interested with Legionnaire. This was one of a few movies that perhaps was a sign that this would be the beginning of Van Damme's career, which was also marred by drug and alcohol abuse as well as being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.Jean Claude Van Damme plays boxer Alain Lefevre who refuses to take a dive during a match and attempts to flee Marseilles, France for America. His plan to flee goes seriously awry and he ends up joining the French Foreign Legion to escape from his troubles. Alain finds that the only way to survive his time in the Foreign Legion is to make it out alive. And to make matters worse, hired thugs have been sent to join the Legion to seek revenge on Alain.Jean Claude Van Damme in his halcyon days was a thrill to watch. Bloodsport (1988), Kickboxer (1989), Double Impact (1991), Universal Soldier (1992), Hard Target (1993), and Timecop (1994) are several of the many movies that I enjoyed watching Van Damme in. The late 1990's and throughout the millennium have not been kind to Van Damme. With the exception of The Expendables 2 (2012), his career has been stuck in direct-to-DVD doldrums and his career does not show any signs of being resurrected anytime soon.On paper producer Edward R. Pressman, famous for movies such as Wall Street (1987) and The Crow (1994), and director Peter MacDonald, well known for Rambo III (1988), you would expect that this would be an action packed spectacle. Instead, this was just a boring fizzer with an uninteresting story and you are wondering when will Van Damme kick some butt.Unfortunately Legionnaire is a very unmemorable movie and amongst all the many dismal movies of the past 15 years, you find yourself reminiscing the glory days of Jean Claude Van Damme.1/10.

Dirty Harry First of all, we got to know this is a Van Damme movie. Taking that into consideration, it is a very good movie. I've watched it several times now, and it really has something special, at least for me. I watch those ratings, like everybody do, when I'm searching for films to watch. But, the ratings are often very misleading, in both ways. So, I'm watching really bad and boring films with ratings 8, and I get turned off of perfectly good films with ratings from 4.5 to 6. Unfortunately, we can't watch all the films, and there will be missed good films, and a lot of bad films watched, but if you want an interesting story, not expecting too much, and have a lot of nice scenes, then don't miss this one. Give it a chance, it's a good film.

M&J Saw this on USA Network one afternoon while home sick with the flu. I was actually surprised. It wasn't half bad and it had an unusually brave ending. It's not an action flick, per-se. You'll see no flying kicks to the face from across the room. No, instead, this is a war film produced and co-written by Van Dam himself. The film takes place in the 1920's, with decent production, set design, wardrobe, etc. While the movie avoids many action cliché's it manages to stumble into some war cliché's. With a little more money, time, and some more script revisions to amp up the movie's already gritty undertones, this could have been a classic. Unfortunately, it *Just* misses the mark. 7 out of 10. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was. I would recommend it for a rental.