It is all terrible, but then it is also oddly wonderful. The Order is begging the viewer to have a good time, and honestly the only thing preventing that are personal standards.

a ludicrous romp

Yes, it's true: Jean-Claude Van Damme is now a screenwriter.

The prologue recounts the legend of Flemish knight Charles Le Vaillant who, just after the Siege of Jerusalem at the end of the First Crusade, “was struck by the hypocrisy of killing fellow human beings in the name of religion [one has to wonder what exactly he imagined he and the other armed-to-the-teeth crusaders were going to do in the Holy Land]. Especially since these people professed belief in the same God [uh, no they didn’t].” Charles had an “epiphany, which became the basis for a new religious sect. An order that would combine the fundamental tenets of the three major religions of his day. His first converts were Christian knights who'd also become disenchanted by the bloodshed. The force of his convictions even won over a number of Muslims and Jews. Former enemies who now became willing converts to the new faith.” The script for The Order was co-written by Jean-Claude Van Damme, who according to Wikipedia has his own wacky religious notions (Christianity is wrong because "snakes are good" and "apples contain pectin, which is anti-cholesterol"); I want to believe that he and his co-writer Les Weldon are in on the joke, but whether or not they take this material seriously, the real probleem is that they don't really tap into the comedic potential of their premise. Specifically, the film should have been a mock 'biography' of Charles Le Vaillant, especially if he we…