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| The poster fairly represents the movie’s quality. |
Universal Studios couldn’t even be bothered to supply an actual synopsis for Welcome to Sudden Death’s IMDb page:
Sequel to the 1995 Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick.
Both the original and its sequel can essentially be summed up as Die Hard in a sports arena, but I guess supplying that much detail was more time than Universal wanted to waste on this thing. They couldn’t even be bothered to put a “the” in front of “sequel,” they had so few fucks to give. And why should they give them, when clearly the makers of the movie didn’t give any.
Sudden Death, the aforementioned “1995 Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick,” didn’t exactly set box office records. In fact, a planned 1997 sequel was scrapped because the movie under-performed. Were our memories not being jogged occasionally when Sudden Death popped up on streaming services (and on cable before that), the movie would likely have been forgotten. But then, 25 goddamn years later, Universal decided that what the world—or at least Netflix subscribers—needed was a Sudden Death sequel.
This time around, instead an ex-fireman with PTSD we get an ex-soldier with PTSD, and instead of JCVD, who turned 60 on October 18, we get the youthful Michael Jai White, who turns 53 on November 10. Sudden Death took place during a hockey game, making it the original Die Hard on Ice. Welcome to Sudden Death takes place during a basketball game. The biggest difference between the two movies, however, is Sudden Death, while no action classic, is a perfectly enjoyable way to kill a Sunday afternoon. Welcome to Sudden Death is a total piece of shit.
The movie is deceptive in its opening, a flashback to Jesse’s (White) soldiering days. He and his platoon have been taken captive in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, being tortured with electric cables. “Tell me American, where are they?” snarls the interrogator, zapping White’s rippling abs with electric cables.
“Gokis,” gasps Jesse to the perplexed torturer. “Go…kiss…my ass.”
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| Michael Jai White flashes back to a better action sequence. |
Ass-kicking and explosions ensue. Then Jesse wakes up. The gritty generic action movie we started watching was all a dream, and now Jesse (and the audience) must face a far more troubling reality: he now lives in a syndicated sit-com. His wife (Sagine Sémajuste) gently nags him about not spending enough time with the kids, but after meeting their children—Mara (Nakai Takawira), a sassy 10-year-old and Ryan (Lyric Justice), her surly older brother—it’s clear what Jesse’s wife means is he better get these little fuckers out of her hair soon or she’s going to pack them into the minivan and drive into the nearest river. Instead of running out the door, Jesse instead presents his obnoxious children with VIP passes to the big game between the Phoenix Falcons and I don’t care. It’s Take Your Plot Contrivances to Work Day!
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| Lyric Justice and Nakai Takawira’s performances will make you reconsider your opinions about Will Smith’s kids |
The kids may have VIP passes, but they’re eclipsed by the game’s real guests of honor: the city’s hand-wringing mayor, the state’s smarmy governor, and, most exciting of all, apparently, is billionaire businesswoman Diana Smart (Sabryn Rock). Diana is escorted by her her rapper boyfriend Milli, short for Millions (sorry if you just vomited in your own mouth), a pairing that’s about as believable as Oprah hooking up with Coolio. Just as perplexing is why a billionaire would choose to dress like an Ikea bedding display.
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| A stylish red pillowcase pairs nicely with a cream bed skirt. |
Also attending the game is a team of crooks, led by Jobe (Michael Eklund, whose scenery chewing never quite pays off). Arriving under the guise of tech support, Jobe and his team quickly change into security staff uniforms and dispatch all the real security guards —all except you-know-who.
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| Jobe (Michael Eklund) doesn’t care who you are. |
Jobe takes Diana, Milli, the governor and the mayor hostage in their luxury skybox. When the governor huffs, “Don’t you know who I am?” Jobe kills him, just to show he means business. While I understand the impulse—who among us hasn’t wanted to shoot someone who utters the sentence, Don’t you know who I am?—killing the gov was a tactical error. I mean, cops don’t just let such a thing go, even if the governor was a doofus.
Jobe’s primary motives are revenge and greed. Diana was responsible for getting him fired when they worked together at the CIA, and now he wants Diana to transfer $1 billion to him and do so within one hour. When Diana protests the time frame, one of Jobe’s tech-savvy accomplices, a prissy woman named Psi (Stephanie Sy—not the PBS news anchor, I’m sad to say), helpfully hands Diana a smart phone and tells her to enter her bank account number, routing number and PIN. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Diana doesn’t have an appropriately sarcastic response to this request, so let’s borrow one from a much better movie:
Meanwhile, Mara witnesses some of Jobe’s gang killing a guy in a restroom and is captured, which can happen when you just fucking stand there. Lucky for her, one of the bad guys draws the line at killing kids (darn the luck) so instead she’s taken up to the skybox for Jobe to deal with. Jesse discovers her missing and goes looking for her. He almost finds her, too, until one of Jobe’s goons gets in the way. Michael Jai White beats said goon to death, a scene that might have been more satisfying had there not been some bargain-bin rap music blaring on the soundtrack.
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| Gary Owen’s portrayal of Gus calls into question his success in stand-up comedy. |
Jesse teams up with the janitor, Gus (Gary Owen), for what I think is supposed to be the buddy comedy portion of the movie, minus the comedy. “This is like some John McClane shit!” Gus exclaims, because nothing helps a shitty movie more than referencing a much better one. Gus and Jesse happen upon another member of Jobe’s obnoxious gang, Gamma (Gillian White), planting a bomb, because Jobe’s plan involves bombing all the exits. When she’s unable to talk her way out of her predicament, Gamma pulls a gun, resulting more fisticuffs and bland rap music. She gets shot in the stomach in the process, but gets the gun thanks to Gus’s clumsiness. Rather than shoot the two guys, however, she shoots herself in the head for the sole reason of providing Gus with the opportunity to shout: “Yo, that is one crazy bitch!” To the movie’s credit, practical effects are used for the gore, not CGI blood spatter.
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| Who would’ve guessed this guy would turn out to be a criminal? |
Moving right along, Jesse and Gus disarm most of the bombs (Gus is on his own for the last one, because hilarity), Jesse discovers his boss was in on Jobe’s scheme (time for more ass-kicking!), and then learns Jobe now has Mara. My opinion of this movie would improve substantially if Jesse said to Jobe, “Hold on, I’ll bring you my son, too,” but this isn’t the type of movie to subvert expectations. Anyway, more ass kicking, a final confrontation with Jobe, Mara in peril, blah blah blah… Jesse saves the day.
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| Michael Jai White in one of Welcome to Sudden Death’s better fight scenes. |
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| What Michael Jai White probably imagines doing to his agent. |
Welcome to Sudden Death answers the question: What if the Disney Channel produced R-rated action schlock? Director Dallas Jackson, also credited with the screenplay along with Sudden Death’s original writer Gene Quintaro, delivers a movie that is almost aggressively devoid of any wit, personality or style. Instead, we get cliched dialogue (including the chestnuts “You had one job!” and “That’s above my pay grade”), cheap-at-half-price production values, and performances barely worthy of an episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (though Owen’s community theater-level acting added a humorous flare to his f-bombs). There’s only so much Michael Jai White can do, and he does the bare minimum here. And yet the movie has the audacity to tease a sequel. I hope for White’s sake he leaves that project to sentient Naugahyde bean bag Steven Segal should it ever materialize.
Corman’s version of The Fantastic Four wasn’t made for public consumption, but it still managed some so-bad-it’s-good charm. Feel free to check it out for yourself. It’ll be a better use of your time than watching the stillborn Welcome to Sudden Death.
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| Michael Eklund welcomes sudden death. |
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