Review of Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2010) by Markus K — 06 Jan 2010

Yawn. Ok, good things: Action is ok, and some of the acting decent. And bad things? Where to begin... First of all, it looked like every other direct-to-dvd-filmed-in-eastern-europe action film these days, grey and sometimes cheap.

Second, it didn't feel like Universal Soldier movie for me. Why, well, those looks are one reason. For me, UniSol movies have been, in both previous parts (1 & 2), about wicked high tech sciences, and settings. Fantasy movies in essential. Here, my theory is that the movie was something completely different at the beginnin, generic action film, while whole Universal Soldier idea was imported to script in fourth or fifth re-write.

And third, main characters. I read someplace (Wikipedia) that this movie ignores part 2 completely. Yeah, why?!!! At the end of first movie, Van Damme regains most of his humanity. At second part he IS human, has daughter, and even gets the lady at the end. It made him much more... well, human! Here he is like recovering drug addict! Maybe that has something to do with Van Damme's real life problems... And he feels like secondary character sometimes.

And Lundgren is... there. For about 10 minutes. This is why whole movie feels like it was something else at the beginning. Lundgren is brought in, he talks in cryptic way, and fights with Van Damme. End of story.

So yeah, in some ways I liked even part 2 better. But least this one didn't have shitty rock music playing over every action scene. But cheap(er) production values showed here.

Part 1 is still best, by far. Check it out! And check sequels as well, if you are curious.