Hey, remember Dennis Rodman? No? An NBA star for 15 minutes, he made his name partly through athleticism and far more through “outrageous” hair colors, various body piercings and dating Madonna.

The makers of Double Team believed Rodman’s brand would last eternal. How else to explain the plethora of basketball-related puns despite basketball having nothing to do with the story? Rodman shoves a gunman through a window and exclaims, “Two points!” The Rod throws another henchman through the air and yells, “Nothin’ but net!” There’s a bizarre parachute shaped like a basketball. What does it all mean? Nothing.

The galling thing is, there’s plenty of cheese on display to enjoy. A sometime-clever riff on The Prisoner, Double Team stars B-movie legend Jean-Claude Van Damme as a superspy abducted to a mysterious island where spies long considered dead work in solitude on world affairs. After nicely MacGyver-ing his way free, he tracks down Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2), the baddie who has insinuated his way into JCVD’s wife’s life.

So far, so good. Asian director Tsui Hark (the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy) never got a fair shake in Hollywood, but he brings flair and verve to admittedly ridiculous action scenes. Rourke was in a career death spiral at the time, but he at least hams it up amusingly.

JCVD is JCVD, meaning energetic-but-wooden acting and putting balletic fight moves on anyone in his path. Unlike fellow man-kicker Chuck Norris, Van Damme never forgets it’s his fighting skills that made him a star, not his talent at holding guns in his hands (although there’s a goodly amount of that as well, usually in tandem with a spiral death blow of some kind). There’s also an ending involving a coliseum, a minefield and a tiger that must be some kind of classic.

And there’s Rodman, the arms dealer named Yaz who aids JCVD. It is not a performance; it is simply putting a camera on him and hoping the audience will never forget he was once a shining star in the firmament. It is a sad reminder of one of our first reality stars, a ballplayer with ego far bigger than talent.

Double Team is goofy fun, but Rodman is a foul shot, a missed free throw. See, I can make sports puns, too. But in context. —Corey Redekop

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Twelve True Facts about Invasion U.S.A.:

1. Inside Chuck Norris’ beard is another fist. This fist wrote the script for Invasion U.S.A.

2. In Invasion U.S.A., the USA is four square blocks of Miami.

3. Gristle Hardpecs plays a government-endorsed mercenary who collects information on his prey by driving around at night until he sees something.

4. Rostov, the lead bad guy played by professional heavy Richard Lynch (The Sword and the Sorcerer), is so terrified of Snap Kick-stache that he wakes up screaming. Lynch found motivation for his screams by remembering that he was filming Invasion U.S.A..

5. Groin Hardpull was in great physical pain during filming and had to wear a back brace, severely limiting his mobility. This is the only explanation for the movie’s marked lack of kicks and punches, instead relying solely on Groin’s charm and ability to hold a gun and point it at things.

6. The first time we see Mullet O’Smackdown, he’s bare-handedly wrangling an alligator. This is because great white sharks were out of season at the time.

7. Many film directors pay homage to other directors in their films. When he started work on Invasion U.S.A., Joseph Zito (Red Scorpion) chose to pay homage to Albert Pyun.

8. Whiskers O’Houlihan’s mullet is of such rare quality, it originally was given top billing. Only union rules prevented this from happening.

9. There is a woman in Invasion U.S.A.. She serves no purpose.

10. Grimace Scabknuckle constantly walks around with his shirt unbuttoned and torso on display. This is a completely hetero thing to do.

11. Punch Facebeard’s plan to lure Lynch into the open results in many innocent people being killed. This is never remarked upon, because Facebeard is a hero.

12. Right now, somewhere in America, there is an NRA meeting showing Invasion U.S.A. as a documentary. —Corey Redekop

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In the space of three films, Luc Besson proved himself a talented director of immensely entertaining genre films. La Femme Nikita is an action classic; Léon: The Professional is pure awesome; and The Fifth Element is gorgeous, magnificently goofy sci-fi.

So when did he become cinema’s equivalent to James Patterson?

That’s not exactly fair; Besson’s works are usually brainless, but watchable, while Patterson’s books (his and those he “shares” with other authors) are nigh unreadable. But Besson has taken a page from Patterson and more or less retired from directing and taken up producing scripts (usually his) that are slapdash at best, relying almost solely on a director’s prowess and the charm of the actors (see: Lockout, Taken, The Transporter, District B13, etc.).

Another is Colombiana, a spiritual sequel to Léon, following a young girl’s rise from innocent to trained assassin as she methodically hunts down her parents’ killers. But where Léon benefitted from Jean Reno’s and Natalie Portman’s charismatic performances and Besson’s verve behind the camera, Colombiana gives us Zoë Saldana (2010’s Star Trek reboot) and director Oliver Megaton (Transporter 3), a man with a Transformer name and an inability to keep the camera still.

In the best action films, we see the stunt. District B13 is entirely stupid, yet nonetheless one of the genre’s best of late, its director understanding that his parkour-trained actors are best served simply by pointing the camera on them and letting them do their thing (see also [seriously, see it]: Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption). Megaton also puts parkour into some chase scenes, but keeps cutting to different angles, so that we never actually get a sense of the physicality. Hell, you edit me like that, I look like an Olympic gymnast (if you knew me, you’d know why this is absurd).

It all boils down to gunplay and explosions, keeping the viewer’s eye distracted and a few great character actors employed. You could do worse, but you can do way better.

A note on Saldana: We need more female action heroes, and she seems an actual talent, selling the emotional scenes far better than the script deserves. But for the love of all that’s holy, someone get her a protein bar. Can we please stop putting firearms in the hands of people who weigh less than the guns they carry? It’s distracting and physically ridiculous (see also: Angelina Jolie). —Corey Redekop

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