The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I watched this movie as a kid. Glad I picked it up cheap on Amazon. Wouldn't spend more than $10 on it. Best parts is the sex scene n the bad a$$ red head chick. Hope she is still buff today.

The Muscles from Brussels takes a co-producer and co-writer credit on this routinely plotted but agreeable action picture. Van Damme plays twin boys, who were orphaned in the 1960s by thugs representing some greedy white collar criminals. One of them, Chad, ended up in L. A. where he got to live a fairly soft life. Alex, on the other hand, remained in Hong Kong where he became a street smart smuggler. 25 years later, their "uncle" Frank (Geoffrey Lewis) locates Alex and reunites the boys so they can have a classic bit of revenge - and reclaim what's theirs in the bargain.All of the action is watchable if never truly inspired. There's a good deal of hard hitting violence (the naive Chad takes his lumps before the story is over), and plenty of effective squib action - not to mention a hearty helping of explosions. The exotic Hong Kong setting certainly helps a lot, as well. One sequence is particularly striking, and you can see bits of that in the trailer. And there's a fairly satisfying confrontation between Van Damme and martial arts icon Bolo Yeung, who plays Moon, a goon who ends up with a fake eye and a nasty scar due to Franks' intervention back in the 60s.There's a certain degree of entertainment in watching Van Damme play two distinctly different characters. Thanks to some reasonably effective movie trickery - body doubles, special effects, and the like - we get to see the twins interacting regularly. Philip Chan, as crime kingpin Raymond Zhang, and Alan Scarfe, as the nefarious Nigel Griffith, are decent action movie baddies in the classic tradition. Both the blonde Alonna Shaw (as Alex's girlfriend Danielle) and the athletic brunette Corinna Everson (as henchwoman Kara) add much sex appeal. The eternally solid and reliable Lewis is a tremendous asset to the story, lending it an appropriate amount of respectability."Double Impact" may not be memorable in the end, but it sure provides a nice diversion for the better part of two hours.Seven out of 10.

Believe it or not, there was a time when two Jean Claude Van Dammes were thought to be better than one. JCVD actually does a nice job here playing twins who are total opposites, managing to make each one distinct so that pretty soon you view them as two separate characters and not just JCVD and JCVD with slicked back hair. The rest of the cast fall in around JCVD well enough. Geoffrey Lewis classes things up as the mentor, and Bolo Yeung re-teams with Van Damme to create another menacing baddie.Logic and common sense are in short supply, but there's plenty of high kicking hijinks to ensure you don't notice, or at least don't care.

Paul Wagner and his wife are killed in a Triad ambush in Hong Kong. Their infant twins Chad and Alex escape. The maid takes Alex to a local orphanage while bodyguard Frank Avery (Geoffrey Lewis) takes Chad out of the country. During the escape, Avery sees that family friend and business partner Nigel Griffith (Alan Scarfe) is working with Triad leader Raymond Zhang. Twenty five years later, Chad (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Frank are running a martial arts gym in L.A. They return to look for Alex who had turned into a petty criminal. Together they seek revenge and get back what's owed to them.This is actually a fascinating exercise to see the extent and the limitations of the acting skills of Van Damme. In Chad, he's playing a virginal naive dork. In Alex, he's a harden street-wise hustler. He's better at Alex than Chad. I don't buy him as Chad and it felt wrong in a cheesy way. It's a role that stretches him too far. It's also noteworthy that the two characters are so far apart. Van Damme is simply not skilled enough to make subtle differences count. Other actors have done twin roles without resorting to night and day performances.