Universal Soldier: The Return
So far,
not so good. My intentions with this new series of reviews was to lower the
amount of DVDs I own, but my first review required me to actually add one to my
collection. For these reviews, the plan is to go to a shelf of DVDs I own
(there are twelve shelves to choose from) and blindly choose one movie. So I
decided I should go with the shelf with all of my Jean-Claude Van Damme movies,
since he is my favorite 80s/90s action star. I closed my eyes and came back
with a “classic” bad Van Damme movie: Universal Soldier: The Return. It had
been a few years since I had watched the DVD (part of the reason for this
project is to possibly get rid of movies I haven’t watched in years), so I was
looking forward to revisiting it. But it wasn’t meant to be as I opened the
case to find it empty.
My
first thought was to just switch movies, but I dismissed that because now I was
interested in Universal Soldier: The Return. Then I considered streaming it,
but it wasn’t available on Netflix. But when I checked the streaming options on
Amazon, I came across something even better. For the bargain of $3.99, I was
able to not only replace my copy of Universal Soldier: The Return, but also
add Knock Off, The Hard Corps, and Second in Command to my Van Damme
collection. The set is laughingly subtitled “Hollywood Hits,” which is funny
since The Return and Knock Off combined to make $20 million, and the other
two movies weren’t even released in theaters. So after a bit of a hassle, I was
able to re-watch Universal Soldier: The Return.
Sadly,
that’s where anything remotely interesting ends. This movie is bad, and it’s
barely bad enough to get a few laughs out of. The story is basically 2001 for
dummies. SETH, a supercomputer in charge of the Universal Soldier program, goes
rogue and plans on taking over the world. Van Damme, a former Universal
Soldier, or UniSol, must save the day. The specifics of how to stop SETH make
very little sense. There’s something about overheating the computer or not
overheating it; it’s hard to tell, and it doesn’t matter. The story is just
there to justify an army of UniSols trying to kill Van Damme. Oh, and, of
course, Van Damme must save his daughter, even though for most of the movie it
seems like he’s forgotten she exists.
The
action should be the saving grace of a movie like this, but it’s incredibly
bland. A bunch of guns are shot and stuff blows up, all set to late 90s heavy
metal music. It almost feels like stock footage used for any number of straight
to DVD action movies from this period. Van Damme’s scenes should make things
more interesting, but he’s on autopilot in this one. There are the required
roundhouse kicks, but he mainly just runs around looking confused.
The
boring action wouldn’t be that bad if some obvious character work had been
explored. For instance, the UniSol program takes dead soldiers and reanimates
them into controlled killing machines. I can’t remember what happened in the
last film that allowed Van Damme to return to normal, but that is easily the
most interesting part of this movie. Is he immortal? How can he have a child?
Shouldn’t he be more of a fish out of water since he technically died during
the Vietnam War? But all of this is washed over when Van Damme’s love interest
asks about the program and just shrugs it off as normal. If someone tells me
they are a zombie of the Vietnam War who is able to procreate, I am going to
continue that conversation. Anyway, the film would have worked much better had
the focus been on Van Damme’s character and his past. Instead, it doesn’t
really matter that Van Damme used to be a UniSol.
There
are a handful of funny moments that make the film bearable, though. The most
blatant one involves the wrestler Goldberg, who from what I can tell plays
himself in the movie since he does a few of his signature wrestling moves.
Goldberg is used as comic relief throughout the movie to little effect, but one
scene has him attempting to jump from a rooftop into the back of a truck. After
he jumps, Van Damme moves the truck forward so Goldberg falls to the ground. It’s
the “Oh, s***!” that Goldberg blurts out at the last second that makes it
funny. By the way, when that is the most memorable and enjoyable scene in the
movie, you know things are bad. There are more moments, but they are not worth
explaining. Well, maybe that part when a computer gives someone the finger...that was sort of funny and definitely stupid.
This is
still a Van Damme film, however, which means I actually kind of like it. Even
though his English is somehow worse in this than earlier films, the dude can
still carry a movie, at least in my eyes. I’ve never been able to explain why I
love his movies so much. I just do. Some people like Seagal; some like Norris;
I like Van Damme.
So why
do I own this? I’m a Van Damme fan. If the price is low enough, I’ll buy any
movie the guy has made, which is why I’ve now bought this garbage movie twice. So
as I continue this series of reviews, I will return to the Van Damme shelf from
time to time to reaffirm my love of his films, good and bad. But next I promise
to pull from a shelf that might have a movie I end up getting rid of.
New(ish) Movie Thoughts: Since it takes me so long to
finally watch new movies, instead of writing full reviews I’ll start writing
short thoughts about recent movies I’ve seen at the end of these articles.
Suicide Squad – This movie had its moments, but overall I
thought it was too messy tonally and otherwise. My main issue was with how tame
it was. There’s a scene in which Harley Quinn breaks a window to steal
something, and the straight-laced commander says, “Seriously? What the hell’s
wrong with you people?” To which Harley responds, “We’re bad guys. It’s what we
do?” But is it? When I think of a villain, I don’t think of petty theft. It’s
like when someone tells you their friend is “crazy” or “hilarious,” and then
you meet them, and they only act crazy or funny because people say they are,
but you can tell they’re just plain people. That’s what Suicide Squad is: the
plain people of the movie world pretending to be different. Did that make
sense? Oh well, it did to me.
The Lobster – My favorite film of the year so far. It’s
definitely the movie that I will praise but not necessarily recommend. The easy
way to recommend this (or not recommend it) is to say if you don’t like “weird”
movies then skip it. If you like things that are different, check it out. It’s
about a world in which you’re turned into an animal if you can’t stay in a
relationship. It is insane, interesting, disturbing, hilarious, etc.
Nerve – This is that movie that came and went a month or
so ago about a social media dare game gone awry. Surprisingly entertaining and
filmed with an internet style that didn’t feel annoying or gimmicky, Nerve is
definitely worth checking out. It gets a little too preachy about internet
bullying near the end, but there is still a message there that people need to
hear as our internet society gets more and more acidic.
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