UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE RETURN / (1999) 1/2* (out of four)
By Blake French:
"Universal Soldier: The Return" is of the worst sequels released this decade, as clear and simple as that. The film is so riddled with mindless action sequences and inane character motives it is comparable to watching someone play a conventional video game in which the player must shoot down as many bad guys as possible before the time limit runs out. In the movie, hundreds of machine guns pick off countless characters before we even get the chance to learn their names. That kind of makes it an emotional feat when the tragic death of the old canine in "My Dog Skip" has greater impact than the death of a legion of fellow American's in this film, that plays like a mechanical stunt show.
"Universal Soldier: The Return" begins with an action scene so perpetually lame I thought it was actually fake. I was right. The scene was a training session to test the skills of a selection of Universal Soldiers--combatants resurrected from the dead who are turned into a super duper fighting machine for top secret military purposes. One of the soldiers is Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who is helping to train a new breed of these combat weapons. A supercomputer called SETH controls the warriors, but when the universal solder program is to be shut down due to inconvenient budget cuts, SETH takes things into his own "hands" and destroys anyone in the way of its own plans of evolution.
What story there is involves Jean-Claude Van Damme and other brainless characters running for their lives through high-tech laboratories and futuristic hallways within a massive corporation that SETH is positioned in. The rest of the story is nothing but an excuse for such high energy action sequences to take place. The filmmakers take nothing else at value: there is no character development, even if audiences are familiar with the original "Universal Soldier," the overwhelming majority will still find themselves confused with the many technical terms that the underwritten script explains by the underwritten script. The best development we receive is an attempt to target Luc's emotional side by touching on a tired cliché subplot involving the death of his wife...but even that comes off as only a tired cliché.
The writing is as smart as the character development; the dialogue is about as straightforward and bland as it nowadays comes. No meaning or truth evolves from the characters on screen here. The only shadow of a brain comes from the movies science fiction style, but even that leaves us with more questions than answers.
The performances are as repulsive as the quality of the rest of the film. Jean-Claude Van Damme never could act, but at least he does not try. Instead he wields large fire arms over his head, blowing other characters to kingdom come. The other actors smell whenever on screen, especially the profusely annoying Heidi Schanz, who if I never see on screen again, it will be too soon. Michael Jai White is the one actor who the filmmakers take advantage of; whenever on screen he appears as a hulking diabolical villain, as he recites his lines with a deep, consented voice.
What about Luc's daughter, who is undoubtedly used as a plot puppet? Or the action scenes that feel contrived and mechanical? Or an explanation of why any military base would want to create a source of intelligence that outsmarts their own? Sometimes, no matter how bad a movie is, we must look hard for a silver lining, but there is almost always something positive that can be made from a feature film. In the case of "Universal Soldier: The Return" the good news it that its only 82 minutes
By Blake French:
"Universal Soldier: The Return" is of the worst sequels released this decade, as clear and simple as that. The film is so riddled with mindless action sequences and inane character motives it is comparable to watching someone play a conventional video game in which the player must shoot down as many bad guys as possible before the time limit runs out. In the movie, hundreds of machine guns pick off countless characters before we even get the chance to learn their names. That kind of makes it an emotional feat when the tragic death of the old canine in "My Dog Skip" has greater impact than the death of a legion of fellow American's in this film, that plays like a mechanical stunt show.
"Universal Soldier: The Return" begins with an action scene so perpetually lame I thought it was actually fake. I was right. The scene was a training session to test the skills of a selection of Universal Soldiers--combatants resurrected from the dead who are turned into a super duper fighting machine for top secret military purposes. One of the soldiers is Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who is helping to train a new breed of these combat weapons. A supercomputer called SETH controls the warriors, but when the universal solder program is to be shut down due to inconvenient budget cuts, SETH takes things into his own "hands" and destroys anyone in the way of its own plans of evolution.
What story there is involves Jean-Claude Van Damme and other brainless characters running for their lives through high-tech laboratories and futuristic hallways within a massive corporation that SETH is positioned in. The rest of the story is nothing but an excuse for such high energy action sequences to take place. The filmmakers take nothing else at value: there is no character development, even if audiences are familiar with the original "Universal Soldier," the overwhelming majority will still find themselves confused with the many technical terms that the underwritten script explains by the underwritten script. The best development we receive is an attempt to target Luc's emotional side by touching on a tired cliché subplot involving the death of his wife...but even that comes off as only a tired cliché.
The writing is as smart as the character development; the dialogue is about as straightforward and bland as it nowadays comes. No meaning or truth evolves from the characters on screen here. The only shadow of a brain comes from the movies science fiction style, but even that leaves us with more questions than answers.
The performances are as repulsive as the quality of the rest of the film. Jean-Claude Van Damme never could act, but at least he does not try. Instead he wields large fire arms over his head, blowing other characters to kingdom come. The other actors smell whenever on screen, especially the profusely annoying Heidi Schanz, who if I never see on screen again, it will be too soon. Michael Jai White is the one actor who the filmmakers take advantage of; whenever on screen he appears as a hulking diabolical villain, as he recites his lines with a deep, consented voice.
What about Luc's daughter, who is undoubtedly used as a plot puppet? Or the action scenes that feel contrived and mechanical? Or an explanation of why any military base would want to create a source of intelligence that outsmarts their own? Sometimes, no matter how bad a movie is, we must look hard for a silver lining, but there is almost always something positive that can be made from a feature film. In the case of "Universal Soldier: The Return" the good news it that its only 82 minutes