Jean Claude Van Johnson entertains in all the right ways
Everyone has their favorite karate star. During the ‘80s and early ‘90s, karate was as ubiquitous as Star Wars—karate dojos popped up on corners all around the U.S., offering training in a variety of martial arts.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dominated Saturday morning cartoons and Ralph Macchio waxed on and off in The Karate Kid. Criminals got a cowboy boot in the face from Chuck Norris on Walker, Texas Ranger.
Those my age remember Three Ninjas and Surf Ninjas and lots of other kid ninjas defeating evil through slapstick humor. This all started, of course, with Bruce Lee. He captured the attention of every wannabe street fighter in the world in movies like Enter the Dragon and Fist of Fury. That he inspired copycats was inevitable. Jean-Claude Van Damme was one.
He hit the movie scene in Bloodsport, an example of both the best and the worst action movies the ‘80s had to offer, and followed it up with classics like Universal Soldier, Timecop, and Hard Target. But, like all karate movie stars it seems, he began to fade into the obscurity of direct-to-video movies by the end of the millennium.
He was off the map for a while until he starred in the limited release film JCVD, where he played a version of himself involved in a post office heist in his hometown of Brussells. It was a send-up of his legacy, a strong performance and commentary on elusive fame and fortune.
Now, thanks to Amazon, he returns in the six-episode series Jean Claude Van Johnson, where he again plays a version of himself. Unlike JCVD, however, Jean Claude Van Johnson is a weird meta-comedy that allows Van Damme to show his range.
The premise is that movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme is a cover for private undercover operative Jean Claude Van Johnson, fighter for truth and justice. He’s retired from both now—a shell of the former fighting force known as the “Muscles from Brussells.” His movie career stalled long ago, as did his undercover work, and as a result, Jean-Claude moves from relationship to relationship, bored and wanting more out of his life.
He decides to return to the agency and is given an assignment on a movie in Bulgaria—a Michael Bay style action reboot of Huckleberry Finn. This is the type of absurdity necessary to make the show work. Most of the jokes a self-referential—Jean-Claude’s opening monologue tells us that he “used to be super famous.” He reminds us about Bloodsport (“It is on television all of the time.”) and Timecop (“Which is like Looper starring Bruce Willis, but like a million times better.”).
The pilot episode is filled with references to action movie clichés, like bad guys attacking one at a time, or eye rolling one liners. But Van Damme’s acting is far better here than it ever was during his heyday. It seems that starring in fifty-eight movies helped him learn something about timing.
The storyline itself is sometimes hard to follow, but it really doesn’t matter. Everything is just a set-up for a joke of some sort. Some of the best material is the biting commentary about the film industry rather Van Damme’s disappearance from it (Huck’s companion, “N-Word Jim,” is replaced by an Asian actor because it’s offensive for a black person to portray a slave and it’ll make the movie more popular in China).
The show works well due to its limited episode number. Six episodes feels like the right amount to explore the idea. Any more and the joke would wear thin. This doesn’t necessarily bode well for future seasons, though. If the writers want to continue the series, they will need to move beyond the more obvious jokes.
Van Damme could reasonably sell another season, but he’d need a stronger supporting cast and maybe cameo or two from the old days, but without turning the show into a smaller scale version of The Expendables.
Jean-Claude Van Johnson is worth a short binge on the weekend, particularly if you were a fan of his earlier work.
Amazon has done a good job on some of their original series’. Shows like Jean Claude Van Johnson and The Tick have a limited audience and that Amazon is willing to give them a chance is a positive, as is their habit of allowing viewers to choose which series they’d like to see created.
Netflix is greenlight happy right now, so it’s nice to see a little restraint. There’s not much of that in the entertainment industry. Give Jean Claude Van Johnson a try. It’s best enjoyed with coconut water.