Review of Universal Soldier: The Return (1999) by Phil H — 05 Dec 2012
Despite being a direct sequel to the original 92 hit this film has since become defunct and ignored within the UniSol franchise. That is of course on top of the two made for TV films which are also ignored, so really the UniSol franchise is a bit of a mess.
You can see why this film was not a hit upon release and since ignored. The whole look of the film is not much better than the previous made for TV films. Everything is set within your standard cliched generic military base/weapons experimentation type facility, it all looks very dull, very grey and with plenty of glass and computer monitors to shoot up hehe.
The plot about the master computer brain taking over the UniSol project it looks after and basically setting all the UniSols free is basic but reasonable. This equal lots of faceless military types getting shot to pieces every 5min and plenty of 'Terminator' style posturing from the UniSols. The saving grace being the fight between JCVD and White, White being one of the best visual fighters in the biz. Unfortunately Goldberg doesn't quite get the true fight he deserves and merely lurches around as comical relief half the time, if you can call it that.
The whole film feels very watered down and not really in the same adult vain as the original film. There is even a 'Hal' moment in the film clearly ripped from '2001', its like they are trying too hard with the material. End of the day this film hasn't broken away from the 'made for TV' look n feel of the previous two efforts.
This review of Universal Soldier: The Return (1999) was written by Phil H on 05 Dec 2012.
Universal Soldier: The Return has generally received negative reviews.
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