Review of Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2010) by Laurence P — 17 Jul 2010

God knows what batteries it's running on, but Universal Soldier is one of those frachises that just keeps on going while nobody's looking. Part III co-starred Burt Reynolds. Part IV saw Jean-Claude Van Damme kickboxing the lid off a supercomputer. This is the fifth. In theory, it should have Steve Guttenberg punching a toaster.

Part reunion, part reboot, Regeneration lives up to its name by rematching Van Damme against his original, cereal box-jawed nemesis, Dolph Lundgren, dragging a ton of retro-action baggage with them.

Actually, it's a bit of a cheat - you expect a versus movie, but both stars are AWOL for long stretches, Dolph, as a weirdly sympathetic FrankenSoldier, gets 15 minutes; Van Damme shows up to foil a terrorist nuke halfway through. Filling the gap is formidable walking fist Andrei Arlovski as a next-gen UniSol who likes to punch heads until they explode.