Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business

Having escaped from the Universal Soldier HQ (see Universal Soldier 2: Brothers in Arms), Luc Devreaux (Battaglia) and Veronica (Chandra West) set out to expose the sinister plot whilst evading capture by fleeing to Canada. Meanwhile the Mentor (Reynolds) has plans to use the unit to steal US gold and a new stage in the units evolution begins as a foetus in a test tube has it's growth accelerated to produce the first organic soldier.

"It can't happen again" exclaims one of the characters during the film, "It's only temporary" says Burt Reynolds at another stage. Unfortunately it is happening again and believe me it doesn't feel like it's temporary at all. This follows on from the "success" of the first sequel and makes all the same mistakes as the first.

The plot is convoluted but still manages to be lame. The essence is the same as US:2 in that the two heroes follow clues whilst avoiding shootouts etc. The bit about stealing gold is just an excuse for more shooting while the whole breeding a soldier thing doesn't make sense - the fully grown man is Eric (Jeff Wincott), Luc's brother who died in US2. If he was grown from a test-tube, how does he have memories? If it really is Eric then how is he brought back as a foetus? Again it's only an excuse to have a brother:brother stand off at some point. Given that the whole thing is a CIA conspiracy then this should have a more shadowy feel to like - a touch of the X-files perhaps? But it doesn't go down that road at all. Some bits are just plain insulting - Luc and Veronica go to Canada to escape and to get Veronica's ex to help them. They meet up at a party which immediately gets taken over by terrorists, who force Veronica to read their demands live on TV to hide their identity. Once Luc kills the terrorists on TV, everyone knows where they are and the chase is on again. Oh and the three terrorists are brought back as soldiers. No reason why or how. This and other things are so badly thought out that it's just stupid. Which just leaves the action...which is dull.

All shoot outs are the same, with no real action or tension. Witness Luc and Veronica escaping down a corridor 'pursued' by 2 soldiers firing automatic weapons - yet both parties are walking slowly rather than running. This is the same all the way through. To make it worse all the shoot outs are unnecessarily brutal - a stealth robbery begins by blasting anyone in sight and a convert operation on a hospital by the soldiers begins by....you guessed it... by blasting nurses etc. Excitement is not measured in body-count, yet unfortunately the director uses this violence to stand in for decent action scenes and drama. In US2 the action was boring and here they haven't made any improvements at all - it's a wasted action movie.

The performances are really the final nail in the coffin. The only good performance is Claudette Roche as the terrorist leader Grace - she's dangerous in a foxy way and she quite sexy! She is good until she's brought back as GR83 with a terrible haircut replacing her once beautiful locks and then gives a very robotic performance. Battaglia is even more wooden here than in the last movie - it's like he trying hard and you can 'see' him act, making him very unconvincing and very, very wooden. He has to deliver several Bruce Willis style one-liners and they are terrible, he has all the charisma of a bookcase and you do wish Jean Claude Van Damme could have been booked. West is so-so but doesn't really bring anything to the role again. The standout performance is Burt Reynolds! Why does a man make Boogie Nights and this rubbish at around the same time? Here he gives the worst Irish accent I've ever heard - I know lots of actors get accused of this (Pitt in The Devil's Own, Gere in The Jackal) but trust me those sound like Bob Geldoff himself compared to this. It's almost worth watching 10 minutes of the film just to hear it. I thought he should have gotten more awards for his role in Boogie Nights, after US2&3 I realise that that was just an one-off from a has-been rather than a slightly better than usual performance. Sad to see how low he's gone.

The same visual tricks are used here as in US2 - slow-mo, jump-cuts etc and again they fail to add any interest in this junk. In fact the only bit in the film that made me sit up, my palms sweat and my heart beat increase was the ending that left it open for another TV sequel. NOOOOOOOOO!

If you can't find something better to do with 90 minutes of your life than this then perhaps you need to sit down and work out where you're going wrong.

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.

Okay bear with me as this gets a bit confusing.

Universal Soldier (1992) was a mediocre action film at best but it was considered a AAA Hollywood movie. Then Universal Soldier II (1998) came out and it was a made for television movie with Van Dammes character recast to someone more affordable, the same year they carried on the story with this third part. Now there were a few more Universal Soldier movies that came after this with bigger budgets and Van Damme returning but they only follow the first film and not the television universe. Confused yet?

With the same poor cast this is the absolute pits, just another generic action flick that doesn't utilize the Universal Soldier concept very well at all.

Somehow, someway industry legend Burt Reynolds got roped into being part of this. Sporting an accent he can't maintain he looks very out of place in this embarassment.

Messy action nonsense with no redeeming features.

The Good:

Passable soundtrack in places

The Bad:

Offensively generic action flick

Some awful performances

Burt Reynolds accent, really?!

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Burt Reynolds must have lost a bet

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.

Quite perturbed by the damage done to his clandestine operation in the previous film, a high-ranking government official by the name of "Director Mentor" (Burt Reynolds) decides to use some of his reanimated soldiers to rid of both "Luc Devreaux" (Matt Battaglia) and the news reporter "Veronica" (Chandra West) once and for all. For his part, Luc wants revenge on those responsible for the killing of his brother "Eric Deveraux" (Jeff Wincott) and intends to see it through to the bitter end. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this made-for-television movie was initially filmed at the same time as its predecessor which saved both time and money in the process. Not a bad idea, really. Unfortunately, the writing clearly suffered as the script contained some rather basic dialogue which became quite obvious early on. Likewise, the overall plot was rather simple and generic as well. So much so, that not even someone as accomplished as Burt Reynolds could save it from its low-budget limitations. At least, that's how it seemed to me. Be that as it may, I don't consider this to be a good movie and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.