Universal Soldier DVD > Reviews > Universally Unappealing

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Hated it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Weak
Special Effects	Unmemorable
Soundtrack	Average

Advantages:	see review
Disadvantages:	see review

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Real fans of Jean-Claude Van Damne must surely number less than the total of fingers the average Simpson’s character has on one hand - exclude blood-relatives from that scenario and you might like to make the same comparison to your average fish. Still, that hasn’t stopped him appearing in an awful lot of cheesy action movies over the years and sometimes the occasional cheesy action move sequel. Universal Soldier was one of the better ones, which also starred one of Hollywood’s B-list Arnie stand-ins Dolph Lundgren, so naturally, Hollywood being what it is, a few years later Universal Soldier 2 made an appearance - twice as cheesy, half as good...

For those who managed to skilfully avoid the original Universal Soldier movie the concept revolved around a new plan to save hundreds of American lives by creating a crack force of special troops - from dead soldiers. With a little pseudo-scientific jiggery-pokery, a few dead blokes were re-animated and sent into the dodgiest situations - but of course it all went wrong and they had flashbacks to their original lives as living humans with families and grudges and all hell broke loose. A few years down the line(into the new movie now ;o), the only survivor form the original batch of Unisols is working alongside the new breed, now supposedly 3 times stronger than the average human, with tougher body-shells and basically indestructible.

Of course, its going to go wrong again, as the operation is set to be closed down by military big-wigs afraid of a repeat of the first Unisol project. The computer SETH which controls virtually every part of the installation containing the Unisols recognises a danger to its artificial life and takes over. It takes control of the Unisols and the complex itself and the only person who stands in its way is of course Monsieur Van Damage himself who is the only person who knows the code which will deactivate the self-destruct sequence which is running inside SETH’s system...

Of course, you know what to expect from a movie like this, but Universal Soldier 2 is quite a painful example of the cheesy B-movie genre. I’m somewhat at a loss as to where to begin in all honesty, it really is quite atrocious on so many counts. It starts off well, with explosions, a high speed water chase, bulging biceps, gratuitous use of heaving bosoms, a huge bad guy and cheesy lines a-plenty - enough to give it a 3 star rating for this kind of movie anyway. Then it all goes wrong by its having the most ludicrous plot progression you can imagine and consisting of little more than a constant stream of action sequences with absolutely no tension to keep it interesting. Sure there are plenty of fights and explosions, but that’s it - people fall down dead, things blow up...viewer dozes off, because we all know Van Damne is indestructible. Dull, dull, DULL!!!

Also along for the thrill-less ride are Michael Jai White who plays the physical embodiment of SETH and who wins the award for most impressively sculpted body seen on screen for some time but little else. SETH is a computer so must be emotionless - i.e. Michael gets to act like a plank for the half hour he is on screen. Then there’s Bill Goldberg, one enormous dude who probably just stepped out of the wrestling ring briefly to make this movie and which just about sums up the kind of audience mentality the producers of this movie were aiming for. Goldberg growls a lot, flexes his muscles a lot and delivers a bevy of ill-conceived one-liners which fail to entertain. Delivering the necessary stupid love interest and entirely unnecessary to the story is a reporter played by Heidi Schanz who is probably meant to be sassy, but just comes across as superfluous and the rest are pretty much just ‘there’ to fill space.

Director Mic Rodgers takes over the sequel from Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin who are rather more adept at turning muck into brass and fails to deliver anything more than incredibly weak entertainment. Its probably exactly what you would expect it to be - i.e. crap, but its not even interesting crap so its impossible to recommend. I like the odd naff movie, usually finding Van Damne at the very least watchable when his movies skulk onto later night TV but not this one. Its like a cross between Terminator 2 and The A-Team but with the mentality of a WWF sub-plot and with all the humour and budget sliced away. if that sounds appealing to you then you’ll enjoy this soulless mass of fists and pyrotechnics, the rest should steer well clear. 1 star, and richly deserving of it.