Review of Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2010) by Matt D — 02 Jun 2011

The first team-up of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren since the original Universal Soldier movie back in 1992 was well worth the wait and certainly doesn't disappoint.

The story this time around deems the 2nd official movie in the series, the 1999 movie US: The Return completely redundant in every way, shape or form possible, instead giving us a very well written, well directed and extremely gritty and violent action movie which feels like we're watching an old school flick of the 1980's.

This time around, an Eastern European militia kidnap a Prime Minister's children, holding the political leader to ransom by threatening to destroy the long disused Chernobyl power plant in 72 hours unless their demands are met and political prisoners of their homeland are freed. The U.S. Military are unable to break defenses at the reactor, stopped in their paths by a Next Generation UniSol (or NGU, played by UFC wrestler Andrei Arlovski, who takes most of the screen time in this movie but does a surprisingly good job).

The military's only hope now lies with "retired" Universal Soldier Luc Deveraux (JCVD), who is learning and struggling to adapt to life among humans again. Luc is taken to Boone Industries to be re-trained to help eliminate the threat, but finds some surprises in store when he infiltrates the enemy base.

The character development is quite slow at times, and most get less screen time than they deserve, Van Damme getting less than 40 of the 97 minutes run time at best, but when the movie calls for action scenes or use of its main stars, it really comes to life with a huge bang, making full use of its deserved 18 certificate.

Sadly this film was only released straight to DVD but with its gripping plotline, this low budget gem shows there's still life not only in the careers of its main stars Van Damme and Lundgren, but also in the franchise itself.

Universal Soldier: Regeneration is definitely one to watch, putting most cinematic action flops of the Noughties such as Die Hard 4.0, Terminator 3 and 4 and the Fast and the Furious series to shame.