Universal Soldier: The Return

Jean-Claude Van Damme has been in about a film a year for 15 years now, and has been the star performer in those films since 1985's No Retreat, No Surrender.

That's no mean achievement and shows that this action movie star has a market for his skills, as limited as they might be. The formula isn't Van Damme's alone but he's certainly the most prolific of the action movie stars.

Silvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Steven Segal, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan are the best known of the action stars but with the exception of Chan, Van Damme is the one who seems to be still most actively in the business. And these sorts of films are much less popular than they used to be.

Jean-Claude is a terrible actor and his film world is simplistic. One can only assume that his fans wish that the real world was like his.

The scenario almost invariably includes lots of hand to hand fighting, silly women and often children who need defending. The plots are stupid and concocted only to allow Jean-Claude to fight a lot and to show his sensitive side as he protects the women and/or children.

The mushy bits, accompanied by appropriate music, aren't ever romantic, Jean Claude could never manage that, but they serve to depict this action man as being a reluctant hero. He only beats people up, firstly because he can, but secondly because he has to.

His best film so far, of the ones I've seen, was the John Woo directed Hard Target (1993) which had many stylish touches, often in slow motion, which accentuated the admirable Van Damme gracefulness.

I think the worst was Double Impact which unfortunately doubled the torture - there were two characters in the film played by the Muscles From Brussels.

And the famous, universal, Van Damme bum shot, the scene where we get to see Jean-Claude's tastefully lit posterior, happens early on in Universal Soldier 2. So if you like you can leave early.

Universal Soldier follows the formula. Actually I think that his fans will like this one. There's plenty of kick boxing.

This movie is just so bad it's good! The acting may look a bit "forced" at times (ok, perhaps "painfully horrible" would be a better expression) but really folks... did you honestly expect an award winning performance from Van Damme or Goldberg? I don't know about you all, but I rented this movie to see Van Damme trade punches with the 290 pound Goldberg and Michael Jai White while uttering dozens of slightly pathetic/slightly amusing one liners at every conceivable opportunity, and I got just what I asked for =)

If you don't like it... tough.

Go rent "The Piano" or "Lawn Dogs" if you want real movies, but if you just want Van Damme brawling with big guys plus some shots of pretty girls, this is just what the doctor ordered.

One of my favourites.

Wow what pure garbage! Well At least I knew it was going be bad before I saw it. I mean first of all it's a Jean Claude Van Damme movie. Secondly, without Dolph Lundgren the first one would have been a bore. I guess you can sum this one up by saying that it was so bad that it was funny. Yes, this movie was hilarious. It made absolutely no sense, had no plot, just a bunch of stuff that happens and a bunch of people get blown up. For example this girl in the movie whom Luc just met like 3 hours ago at the most is telling him at the end of the movie that she can't live without him. PLEASE!!! I have never watched more predictable movie.

I like Van Dammes movies and Universal soldier was one of my favorites(along with Blood sport and Hard target). I looked forward to a sequel, but when I saw the reviews, "The worst film I've seen" it also earned it self a average of 3.0(29th of Feb 2000) on this sight. But I had to hire it out, and I was honestly surprised. DON'T watch it unless youv'e seen the first or it will make no sense. It doesn't explain the first story, it only says that Luc(Van Damme) was one of the first uni sols. It then doesn't tell you about the new project, and how Luc became involved, also it says about the main female characture in the first, who is now his wife and is dead, how did she die?

Although it doesn't make much sense it is a good action film with some great fight scenes especially ones with Goldburg, and the final showdown. So make your own decision and watch. entertaining 4/10

Jean-Claude van Damme belongs to that kind of popular hero you just can't dislike. The sequel to Universal Soldier is not exactly what you'd call a brilliant film, but it does deliver the goods it promises. Whether if these goods please your taste is another problem, but if you like films with lots of fights, explosions, heavy metal, Bill Goldberg and some gun hardware this could be a good one to watch with your friends on a rainy Saturday night.Nothing special, but there are definitely worse movies around... without Van Damme. A little above average...