Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business

Where to begin. The story is fine, the acting is pure, even when Luc is supposed to be human he is worse than Star Trek DATA, and it this really Universal Soler III or IIb? As you can tell, this spinoff of the series is messed up. The acting would be solved if they had meant money on Van Damme (to go with Gary Busey, Burt Renolds, and a Bill clinton voice impersonator). Unfortunately they dont, and this "high tech" looking TV-seried (parts one and two) finds the need to recreate the end of Universal Solder I and then erroniously place the date as 1998 not 1992. Berronlia and West are merely Canadian versions of the Universal Soldier I characters and it shows. Like other movies (aka The Jessee Ventura story) the Canadians come off as fake and crude (especially in the Canadian business scene). Anyway not to bash on Canadians as the movie does have one of the funniest lines I can remember.

Burt Reynolds: "General Clancy, I need a favor."

Clancy: "Whats that sir?"

Reynolds: "I need you to die. Don't Worry its only temporary."

Hopefully this teo part blip and Burt Reynolds fakish Scotch Irish accent are only temporary.

With this third installment in the "Universal Soldier" franchise, the series just plummets even deeper into a dark place. But I am getting ahead of myself here.

First of all, let me just say that now in 2021 it is actually the first time that I sit down to watch the 1998 direct to video third movie in the "Universal Soldier" series. And I watched it right after having watched part 2, also for the first time. So I can't really say that I was having much hopes for this particular movie. But still, I hadn't seen it before, so I watched it.

And while "Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business" is a continuation of where part II left off, then the storyline told in this third movie was just a step back; a step in the wrong direction. The storyline didn't have the same appeal or impact as the storyline had in part II, needless to say that both these sequels are not up to par with the original Van Damme and Lundgren movie. Writer Peter M. Lenkov just didn't manage to come up with something that even could match the less than mediocre foray that was part II.

"Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business" continues in the spirit of part II, for sure. But take Gary Busey out of the equation and you're stuck with an even smaller cast of actors and actresses that had a chance to pull on the reigns of this horse. While Burt Reynolds is an adequate actor, he just was wrongly cast for a movie such as this.

The action sequences in "Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business" feel somewhat awkward and staged, often coming off as being randomly placed into the movie.

This was not the brightest of moments in the franchise's run, not even by a long shot. And while I did manage to sit through the entire movie, I can in all honesty say that this is not a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time.

I am rating director Jeff Woolnough's "Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business" a three out of ten stars.

This movie is a direct sequel to the second Universal Soldier movie, and makes no sense alone. Here, we get to know a bit more about things we were so extremely excited to know (yeah, right), for example who the leader of the bad guys is. The story becomes a bit more interesting than in the previous movie, and because of that I think it's a better one. The action is also better (although it still sucked). Battaglia does the same job all over again, Jeff Wincott should just forget that he ever took part in this, and Burt Reynolds (!!!, yes, Burt is in fact in this one. How low can you get) has just gone down the drain. This is not a great movie at all, but it can't be used as a torture device like it's prequel.

Unfinished Business indeed. As if you hadn't been bored to death already, here's another hour and a half to really knock you out.

In case there's anyone out there at all interested, this follows straight on from the 'cliffhanger' of no.2 "Brothers in Arms" (NOT "The Return"), following the exploits of poor old Luc what's-his-name and some woman as they get ever closer to uncovering the truth behind an illegal government conspiracy to sell undead soldiers to......snore.....snore.....snore.

I can't quite remember, but I think there might actually be an explosion in this film somewhere - just for all you high-octane action junkies out there. Oh and occasionally people fire big guns. Other highlights? The trailers and the end credits.

Yes, it's really THAT good.

(1998) Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business SCIENCE-FICTION ACTION DRAMA

Slightly better than the previous one called "Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms", but still quite awful, overall, because of the production budget and the fake looking action scenes. Matt Battaglia returns to the title role of "Universal Soldier" Luc Devereaux or GR44, and viewers get to find out what 'G. R.' stands for which are the initials of every 'Universal Soldier' cyborg ever created. They are really the initials of someone's name, who is the person who funded the cyborg program played by Burt Reynolds. And at the same time, both Luc and reporter Veronica Roberts (Chandra West) must find a way to expose this to the media. They are confronted by radical terrorists attempting to hijack a building, but after shot dead, they are later turned into Universal Soldier cyborgs as well. One of the major fights, which is kind of lame, consist of a major fight between brother to brother.