Customer Reviews

Derailed

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I used to be a big Van Damme fan. Timecop, Hard Target and Lionheart are still among my favorite action movies. However, recent Van Damme's movies are rather weak. It is my personal opinion that without a interesting original script and quality professional actors portraying the "bad guys" Van Damme's movies aren't' worth the time nor money.

Brief comments about this movie - very [poor] story, much weaker than Segal's Under Siege 2 Dark Territory. Some sickening pictures portraying Small Pox outbreak. Supporting cast, excluding Tomas Arana, Laura Harring, range from weak to complete amateurs. Also, special effects are very weak.

On the positive, if you love Van Damme, you will see him doing his usual stuff in the movie. Also, his son makes a theatrical debut with some nice martial art moves.

Overall, I would rather watch again one of my favorite Van Damme movies than this one.

Van Damme's most recent effort has a plot similar to UNDER SIEGE 2 and BROKEN ARROW which is scripted by B action film maker Boaz Davidson, the man responsible for such hilariously awful garbage as AMERICAN CYBORG.
Van Damme plays Agent Jacques Kristoff, who is assigned to escort gorgeous thief Golina Kostantin (Laura Elena Harring from JOHN Q) from Slovakia to Eastern Europe by train. Coincidentally, on board the train is a deadly biological weapon. After the train's first stop terrorists; led by the sadistic Mason Cole (Thomas Arana from GLADIATOR) board with the goal of finding and stealing the vial containing the deadly virus. What they plan to use it for is anyone's guess.
Now for coincidence #2: Among the train's passengers are Kristoff's wife and son. Things really start getting heavy when the virus is let loose throughout the train thanks to the bunglings of one of the terrorists. The leader lets him off lightly though: the culprit is promptly shot through the head, as all nasty terrorists types are wont to do. But as we all know by now, you don't mess with Jean-Claude. Especially when his family is involved. Butt-kicking time.
The movie starts starts OK, but soon derails itself. The addition of unconvincing minature setpieces and an overall air of stupidity make DERAILED about as explosive as a Bay City Rollers reunion. This movie looks and feels no different to any of the other direct to video actioners with stars like Michael Dudikoff and Jeff Speakman. DERAILED is a pretty anemic effort, but not Jean-Claude's worst: NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER and CYBORG are both tied for that dubious honor, but if like myself you're a Van Damme completist you'll want to watch it anyway. Don't say you weren't forewarned.
Extras include a behind the scenes featurette, trailers and subtitles in English and Hindi.

Van Damme has had some great action flicks in his time and i'm sad to say that his movies seem to be getting worse and worse as the years go on. Yet i still put faith in the man to turn out another great movie.
Derailed is about 1hr and 20 mins of Van Damme kicks and explosions. Although this movie wasn't as good as i hoped it's still worth checking out. The idea behind the movie is great for a Van Damme action vehicle yet it needed some more fight scenes and better special effects. The special effects were so bad i actually started laughing, and i'm not kidding. That was part of the fun of the movie though. If you're a Van Damme fan i think you'll enjoy this movie, and if your not still check it out, it's still entertaining.

Van Damme is back and his movies are getting worse . . . sure he has made some great ones like SUDDEN DEATH and KICKBOXER, but this one, from the people that brought you CROCODILE and SHARK ATTACK(and its sequels!) is so bad it's hilarious. Van Damme plays a government agent(AGAIN?!) who has to escort a prisoner across Europe by train, but in the process terrorists steal and unleash a bioweapon on board which she is transporting. And to add to the complications, Van Damme has his family, or the usual oh-the-humanity interest on board. The authorities, fearing a Europe-wide plague from the dealy smallpox bioweapon, attempt to destroy the train. Sound familiar? A rip-off of the far superior CASSANDRA CROSSING with hints of the equally superior UNDER SIEGE 2 thrown in. However, the enjoyment comes from the incredibly bad special effects that you will see. Check out the toy helicopter chasing a train set through papier-mache mountains! Exploding cars on the autoracks that blow up as soon as a bullet hits them, lack of route knowledege through Austria by the producers(all main lines in Austria have overhead wires and do not operate Bulgarian diesel locos), two toy train wrecks set alight by a kid with a match or so it looks and horrendously bad acting and dialogue that makes bad movies like BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and SHARK ATTACK 3 look brilliant. So at least it's funny. Recomended if you love dreck and want something to compliment that bad movie cheese-fest you are putting on!

I hated this Van Damme movie. I own all his others but I could not bring myself to add this to my Van Damme collection. I found this to be a very bad movie with very low production values. There was nothing in this movie for me other than annoyance. Very poor direction, cheap and laughable special effects, particularly the exterior train sequences where the train looks like it is made of wood, illuminated with a light bulb from the inside and pulled along by a piece of string. Bad lighting, badly filmed, executed and edited martial arts and action sequences. Laughable acting performances from all including Van Damme. Very bad audio post production special effects to such an extent that at times you can't hear character dialogue. I got the impression that a lot of this was filmed in very low lighting conditions to hide the cheap sets and obvious poor special effects. Basically the movie is a cheap rip off version from a mix of Under Siege 2 with Steven Seagal and The Cassandra Crossing with the late Richard Harris. I would say to anyone thinking of buying this to go and rent it on the cheap first before splashing out your cash. You might be thankful you did.

When i heard Van Damne had a new movie and it was playing on T.V i was excited.Im a huge fan of Van Damne,im just gonna say,this movie was pretty good,but not wanna Van Damnes best.Van Damne is not been a movie in a while but when he comes back i hope its like the one in his old days.When i saw Derailed on USA,the beginning,like the first 20min of it was some boring,but it got better and better with the fighting and explosions.Even though this movie was good,but this one will be the one that Van Damne will be lest know for.I cant wait till he comes back, and when he does,i hope the movie is filled with his high flying kicks.

I was looking forward to seeing this movie, my friend told me he saw a new Van Damme flick in the video store titled 'Derailed'. I am a Van Damme Fan, but after getting this film on DVD it hit me like a book it was horrible! It was pathetic....it SUCKED! I own Under Seige 2 and I liked it, there is NO COMPARISON. What hurt the most is how happy I was when I got the DVD, and how much I was looking foward to seeing it before and after I got it.

Derailed is the worst Van Damme movie AND the worst MOVIE I have ever seen and yes I am also a Van Damme fan.

Jean really stuffed up BIG TIME with this flick.

On another note, Van Damme's son starred in this movie aswell, he is a good lookin' kid, has his fathers good looks and skills.
Jean should be ashamed of himself! Putting his son in a terrible first flick like this.

0 star film:-
EXTREMELY OVER-RATED BY THE LOOK OF THE DVD/VIDEO COVER.
DONT BE FOOLED.

In conclusion, dont even pick up or look at the packet if you see it in a store.

Okay, okay, I admit it. To all the world (well, Amazon.com users) I am a BIG Van Damme fan. Yeah, I have been taking the heat on this for a number of years now, but I can't help loving the guy. From the guitar-twanging thrills of HARD TARGET to the vicious (and balletic) brawling of KICKBOXER and BLOODSPORT, 'Van Dammage' has constantly entertained and kept my faith in bad action cinema alive. Even though he seems to be appearing in Direct-to-video movies now, he still has the knack for picking interesting riffs on the action genre. Check out his collaborations with two of Hong Kongs' finest: Tsui Hark (the underrated DOUBLE TEAM and KNOCK OFF) and Ringo Lam (MAXIMUM RISK and the killer comeback movie REPLICANT). These movies have shown his ability to choose difficult and 'Non-Hollywood' product, opting to make something far more different than formulaic.

Having said all of that in support of my hero, here comes DERAILED. A near train wreck of a movie (Cliched I know, but I'm sure I stole that line from a friend of mine.), it ambles along like a dodgy episode of an old TV show, with awful production values and terrible visual effects. The dull story is a lazy retread of DIE HARD and UNDER SIEGE 2. A virus has been leaked out on a train by some dastardly terrorists, and only Van Damme can stop them before the world(?) is taken down by smallpox. And, er, thats it. Okay, there may be a little more going on, but from the bad acting, uneven direction and lack of genuine suspense, all you want to do is stop the movie, eject the disc and watch LIONHEART again. Maybe, just maybe, this total waste of time will be just a figment of my imagination.

This movie is that bad. Don't be fooled by the obvious 10+ year old shot of Van Dammage on the cover, or the stills of him riding the motorbike across the top of the speeding train. None of these things will change the fact that this film is like watching paint dry on a very cold day. Coming after his other mistep THE ORDER, this ranks as the lowest dip in his career. Which is a shame, as 2000 saw his excellent comeback flick REPLICANT show that he could still flex his action muscles, as well as delivering a solid performance wrapped up in a decent story. As I have stated previously, this one hurts. To pinpoint what is the worst thing about it, would be a worthless exercise as the movies' problems are legion. Bob Misiorowski's direction is pedestrian and uninvolving (I couldn't believe my eyes when he informs us of the state-of-the-art effects sequences that have been used in the depiction of the speeding locomotive. Try toy trains, bub), and the pacing lacks drive or energy that is needed to make this kind of adrenaline-pumped film work. Summing up, I hate to admit it, but stay away. Movie like this are dime a dozen and seem to turn up on cable TV with alarming regularity. Van Dammage should have steered clear as well, saving his fans from wasting $ and giving his detractors another reason to naysay him. I can only hope that he keeps to his word (on the doumentary accompanying the flick), that he is going back to the movies that made him a star in the first place. The BLOODPSORTS', the KICKBOXERS' and hey, even CYBORG. Now, that would be something to look forward to.

How the mighty kickboxing bruiser has fallen. Ranking as one of the worst movies in Jean Claude's career, this sorry excuse for a movie is not only a derivative DIE HARD clone, but also makes UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 2 seem a whole let better in retrospect. Avoid.

Jean-Claude Van Damme's latest film, "Derailed," is a treat for his fans, but beyond that it serves little purpose. Van Damme plays Kristoff, a secret agent or something who has to escort this woman to Munich via train. But things go bad when the train is hijacked and we learn that the woman has a deadly virus in her possession. Add to this Kristoff's family is on board and we have ourselves some classic dumb-action mayhem! Unfortunately for Van Damme fans, he does not do his jumping crescent kick, but he gets the roundhouse in a couple of times. His son, Kristopher Van Varenburg, also does a little bit of high kicking. Could there be a future action star in the works? Who knows!