🍿FilmFellow

Messrs. Van Damme and Lundgren reunite just one time too many for this terrible underwater thriller. The former ("Wheeler") finds himself on a submarine where a rogue CIA operative "Rhodes" (Al Sapienza) and his team are bent on gunning him down after he was framed. Fortunately he has the help of trainee agent "Cass" (Jasmine Waltz) and, latterly (and briefly) that of his erstwhile buddy "Marco" (Lundgren) who has an axe or two of his own to grind. What now ensues is just poor. No other word for it. Submarines are highly pressurised tin cans that don't react well - as Sir Sean Connery told us in "Hunt for Red October" (almost thirty years earlier) - to bullets. This one has to deal with machine guns and explosions galore before the completely unsecured bridge becomes the focus for a conclusion that couldn't come quickly enough for me. There is just nothing at all memorable about this; the talent are universally lacklustre and the plot just lurches from silly to daft to "really"? Van Damme does have charisma, but it's fading fast and he cannot hold this together en seul - it's just weak and derivative and not 1¾ hours of your life that you will never get back.

Lundgren probably contributed about a day's worth of shooting to the very inappropriately named _Black Water_. JCVD, occupying the other space on the cover, is actually a lead role in the movie though, but he hasn't been in a good movie in **years** so that's doesn't bode particularly well. The real problems with _Black Water_ are less to do with the actors though (most of whom are, admittedly, bad) and more to do with the fact that that it doesn't offer a single thing that's original, or even an unoriginal thing done well. The way it is going to end up is completely transparent from the word go, and a couple of minimal-level of acceptable action sequences alongside a Dolph cameo, do nothing to change that. _Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product._

A mostly subpar action/thriller with a few surprises. Nevertheless, nice to see Dolph and Jean-Claude together!