It is a given that there are some mysteries mankind cannot solve at this time. For example, what exactly is in Wyoming? Nobody knows. Some people don't believe the state even exists. (Hey, do YOU know anyone from Wyoming? Have you ever heard anyone say, "Let's go to Wyoming on holiday this year"? Even in jest?) Modern science has determined that Wyoming is a rectangular state, somewhat north of Colorado but offset a bit to the left. Based on evidence of mountain ranges in other states that lead into Wyoming, we can hypothesize that the Rockies do extend through Wyoming. Unfortunately, this is all we know about the state. It is unlikely that we will find out any more in our lifetimes.

Another of life's mysteries is how a squat, overly-muscled side of beef with a poor grasp of the English language could become a trillionaire. No, I'm not talking about Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or even Bruce Willis. Today's contestant is the Mussels from Brussels: Jean-Claude Van Damme. One wonders about that nickname. Was Mr. Claude Van Damme originally discovered attached to a rocky surface or the side of a ship? Does he have a soft unsegmented body (yes) and a protective calcareous shell that consists of two hinged valves (perhaps at one time -- plastic surgery has come a long way)? Is the reviewer intentionally misspelling "muscles" for a cheap joke? It is impossible to tell.

One of the films in Mr. Claude Van Damme's impressive portfolio is the 1995 magnum opus "Sudden Death."

Some background: In 1988, a movie called "Die Hard" appeared in the cinemas not unlike a rather wet bug slamming into your car's windscreen while you're barreling down I-95 at eighty miles an hour. Since that time, several filmmakers have decided that they could tell the same story, only not as well.

Writers Gene "Operation Dumbo Drop" Quintano and Karen Elise Baldwin (most notable for her performance in the Adrian Zmed straight-to-video vehicle "Eyewitness to Murder," which she also co-wrote) have clearly taken too many experimental drugs in college, as most of their brain cells have been killed off. Somehow, they came up with a script that had Powers "the name and face are familiar, but I can't remember anything he's ever done" Boothe kidnap the Vice President of the United States at the Stanley Cup playoffs only to be foiled by an inarticulate fire inspector.

Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Detective John McClane, a fire inspector for the city of Pittsburgh, where the Chicago Blackhawks have somehow made it to game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Penguins. This is our first clue that we're in some sort of alternate universe. The Chicago Blackhawks? Can anyone name a player from that team? I'm certain that several people have forgotten the team actually exists.

For some reason, the Vice President of the United States is in attendance. Powers Boothe and his cannon fodder cronies take the Vice President hostage, which worries absolutely nobody watching the movie, as we all know that the VP's main job is to attend state funerals and try to become the President next time around. Somehow, Van Damme's daughter is also kidnapped by the Boothians. Somehow, Van Damme finds out that Boothe is going to blow up the stadium at the end of the game unless he's paid several skillion dollars. Like any sane person, he escapes, relays as much information as he can to the police and the SWAT teams, and lets the professionals handle it. Just kidding! He decides to take them all on himself, including defusing the bombs! Yay!

Along the way, he fights several bad guys. As this is the 90s, we can't just knock out people and turn them over to the police -- we have to kill them in nasty ways! Yes, you'll get to see decapitations, someone getting tossed into a deep fat fryer, and a guy in a penguin suit getting pulled into Wallace and Gromit's Sheep Mulching Machine from "A Close Shave." You'll probably see someone get run over with a Zamboni, but my memory is a bit fuzzy. I started heavily drinking after this movie was released.

In addition to running around, pulling metal sticks out of explosive silly putty, killing a Bad Guy or two, VD (as the fans call him) manages to suit up as a goalie and gets some time on the ice! Truly, a Renaissance Man.

Somehow, one of the teams scores a goal in the last second of the final game of the playoffs, tying the score. This sends the game into overtime, or, as hockey aficionados call it, "The First Overtime Period." For some reason, the actors, director, and writers all call it "Sudden Death," proving that they haven't actually seen a game of hockey. Ever. (I mean, the Chicago Blackhawks? Shouldn't this videotape be filed under "Fantasy"?) It might be a fact that the last person to ever call overtime "Sudden Death" was John Madden in 1986.

So now VD has until the next goal is scored to stop Powers Boothe. I think the big JumboTron thing above center ice explodes and falls to the rink, causing everyone to flee the arena or something. I remember a stampede to the exits, but I'm not certain if that was in the movie or in the actual theater the movie was playing in.

Somehow, Boothe gets to the top of the dome where a waiting helicopter is. Van Damme reaches into his utility belt and affixes one end of his batarang around Boothe's leg and the other end around a convenient gargoyle. Boothe's helicopter falls perpendicularly through the hole in the arena's roof (?) and crashes in a spectacular explosion on center ice. To emphasize that we are not on the Planet Earth any more, the helicopter falls at approximately six inches per second, indicating that gravity is much weaker here, wherever we are. We're probably on one of Uranus' moons. Or Wyoming.

Scene to watch for: VD fights the Penguin's mascot.

Best line: Thankfully, I cannot recall any dialogue from this movie.

Things that make you go "Huh?": Why do the movies always try to explain why Van Damme talks kinda funny? Just go with it.

Response From RinkWorks:

Once upon a time the Chicago Blackhawks were good. Two names from their team in those days: Jeremy Roenick and Ed Belfour. I only know this from playing NHL Hockey 95 for the Sega Genesis. One of my favorite tricks in that game was skating through the net with the puck for an easy score. It only worked part of the time -- the other times you just bonked into the net and hoped the puck came loose and trickled in. I believe this was the year before EA Sports introduced knocking the net off the moorings as a feature of their hockey games. Once they did that, skating through the net like a ghost became harder. Instead, you'd bonk into the net and send it flying off its moorings and cause a face-off. I also think Hockey 95 was the last year they had fighting in the game until recently when they added it back in. This was during the NHL's attempt to "clean up their image" so one of the clauses they put in their licensing agreement with EA was "no fighting." Well, hockey without fighting is like boxing without fighting, so they eventually allowed fighting to be put back in. Anyway, if the NHL was really serious about cleaning up their image, they'd make fighting an automatic ejection like it is in every other sport in the civilized world, instead of just a five minute penalty. Also, this movie sucks.