Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bill Goldberg, Michael Jai White, Kiana Tom, Heidi Schanz, Karis Paige Bryant, Daniel von Bargen
Director: Mic Rodgers
Producers: Craig Baumgarten, Allen Shapiro, Jean-Claude Van Damme
Screenplay: John Fasano, William Malone
Cinematography: Michael A. Benson
Music: Don Davis
U.S. Distributor: TriStar Pictures
There are times in life when it pays to hold fast to certain convictions. In particular, I'm referring to a resolution I made after Knock Off not to endure another Van Damme movie. In accord with that decision, I initially had no intention of seeing Universal Soldier: The Return. Then came a flood of e-mails asking if I would please review the film. And, although I don't usually do requests, I gave in. In retrospect, I should have listened to that little inner voice telling me to stay away. I may not have paid money to see Universal Soldier: The Return, but there's no way to retrieve the 90 wasted minutes.
I was not enamored with the original Universal Soldier, a 1992 product of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, who would go on to mega-success with Stargate, Independence Day, and Godzilla. My original (unpublished) review read like this: "Universal Solider is basically a bad movie with a few action scenes that grab the attention. Unfortunately, the moments that work take up about 10% of the film's screen time, so that in between there's a lot of moronic plot development; long, drawn-out chases; and pathetic acting. The story is silly and the attempts at characterization are laughably bad. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, afflicted with occasionally incomprehensible accents, deliver lines like they're reading them from a teleprompter...We've seen it all before, and most of the time, it has been done with more style."
My reason for quoting from that seven-year old review is that everything except the bit about Dolph Lundgren (who isn't in this installment) applies to the sequel. Universal Soldier: The Return is not a movie for anyone with measurable brain activity. It's essentially one long, drawn-out series of fights and explosions, occasionally interrupted by embarrassingly bad dialogue (most of which was copied verbatim from The Screenwriter's Guide to Popular Clichés) or trite character development. The film is actually deadly dull because stunts coordinator-turned-director Mic Rodgers (making his feature debut) flagrantly ignores one of the Macho Movie Commandments: constant, repetitive action without a hint of tension can put the viewer in a catatonic state.
Universal Soldier: The Return is a Terminator 2 wannabe. In the role of Luc Deveraux, The Indestructible Good Guy, we have that second-rate Schwarzenegger, Van Damme. This time around, the Belgian-born martial arts star's once-thick accent has lessened considerably. He no longer sounds like he's talking with a mouth full of marbles - although that's not necessarily a good thing, because understanding his dialogue means recognizing how awful it is. The Hard To Kill Bad Guy is Michael Jai White (the title character in Spawn), who, if nothing else, can claim the most impressive physique on display in any 1999 motion picture. Talk about a hard body... Exhibiting almost no emotion, White plays SETH, a super-intelligent computer implanted in a genetically enhanced body. When the U.S. government decides to stop funding SETH's Universal Soldier program, he flips a disk and has his small army begin a systematic campaign of terror by blowing things up and killing everyone in sight. It's up to Luc to stop the carnage, save his daughter from death, and keep his Pointless Sidekick/Love Interest (Heidi Schanz) from getting shot to pieces along the way. And, just in case SETH isn't an imposing enough enemy, there's burly Bill Goldberg as Romeo, a Universal Soldier who looks like he just stepped out of the ring after a bout with Stone Cold Steve Austin (and I'm not referring to the Six Million Dollar Man).
To be honest, Universal Soldier: The Return delivers exactly what I expected it to, and that should make it adequate fare for those who appreciate this level of mind-numbing motion picture. Some of the explosions are cool. There's an exploitatively entertaining sequence in a strip joint that features a bevy of topless women. (Van Damme actually has an intentionally amusing line as he's pulling up to the club.) Still, despite all the pyrotechnics, I almost dozed off twice. For those who have trouble sleeping but are reluctant to use drugs, try sitting through a showing of Universal Soldier: The Return. Even with the screeching, roaring digital soundtrack, you'll be out in no time.
© 1999 James Berardinelli