Universal Soldier: Regeneration

In the third and by now the last Universal Soldier series, both Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren are back for one last showdown together.

This time they are both in a different place a different time for a different reason. But with the same anger and history.

So, is it any good? Well, being a STV and the fact that i's filmed in Bulgaria, it's pretty good actually.

I would say that it's not by far the same as the first Universal Soldier, but still good old action fun with two old action stars.

Anyways, good action, so so on the story and some cool violence and effects. The movie were kinda fun.

I'll rate it 7 out of 10 stars, cause I like Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. :)

World wide terrorism is fast becoming the stereotypical plot for new age films. They could be about corrupt inner governments, renegade police or as in this case, rebellious disenchanted rogue soldiers. The film is entitled " Universal Soldier: Regeneration. " This is part three and as with the original premises, dead soldiers who died in armed combat, were stored in cryogenic coffins, revived, repaired and returned to duty. In this third sequel, Russian terrorists have the added help of NGU's or New Generation Universal Soldiers which are improved, re-generated, deadlier soldiers. Dolph Lundgren returns as Andrew Scott and Andrei Arlovski, have kidnapped the children of the Russian Premier. In addition, radical soldiers, have also seized control over the Cernobal nuclear power plant. Together it poses a world wide threat when the rebels promise to detonate a huge bomb there, which will release a massive dangerous radioactive cloud across the world. In response, the governments activate some elite soldiers of their own including their former Universal soldier, Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) who has under gone DE-programing, to combat the threat. The film is an improvement over the original in both drama and excellent acting. Ludgren and Van Dammn should be complimented on re-visiting former roles. With sufficient action, excitement and a generous supply of physical confrontation, the movie does a good job of keeping an audience entertained. ****

The opening scene blew me away!! Absolutely amazing action at the beginning. Andrei (Pitbull) Arlovski stole the show with a great action performance. JCVD had a smaller role than the previous film and did a solid performance. I was disappointed that Dolph Lundgren's role was so small but he did a great job. The long fight sequence between Dolph and JCVD had some amazing parts as well.

The action at the beginning is by far the best; yet the film continues to deliver till the very end. I especially appreciate the minimal use of dialog. Extensive dialog was not needed for this film and was not included (useless and excessive dialog drives me nuts in action films).

*************SPECIALIZED CRITIQUE TO FILL SPACE!!****************

My only complaint was the tactics, weapons and armor employed by the US Army forces in the film. The weapons used by the Army forces appear to be the fully automatic M16A1 (with after market banana clips) which was used in the Vietnam War. The Army now uses the M16A4 with a 30 round magazine (slightly curved but not banana style) which is not fully automatic (Burst/Semi/Single) and Infantry are trained to rely primarily on well place single shots leaving the fully auto fire to the 240B or the SAW Gunners.

Additionally the US Army relies heavily on night-time operations thus ALL combat troops are equipped with Night Vision Devices. Mid day attacks are rarely ever performed especially against a heavily embedded enemy force. None of the "good guys" had night vision devices.

The US Army ubiquitously uses the Interceptor System of body armor which utilizes heavy ceramic plates in front and back of the soldier to protect from small arms fire and to minimize wounds from explosions. The soldiers in the film appear to wear simple Kevlar.

Furthermore Recon operations are never performed by a single operator but by small silent teams (2 or 4 men) moving slowly, smoothly and silently together. The lone Recon guy's equipment, weapon, and movements were completely wrong and his equipment made way too much noise.

I guess my main complaint would be the Director didn't do his research when it came to a large portion of his film. This is a common complaint for me in most movies which attempt to show modern US Army tactics and weapons. You would think that with all the unemployed Iraq War veterans out there they could find a few to advise them on their films.

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Ultimately Universal Soldier: Regeneration was an enjoyable film. I read one snobbish review relegating it to "B" movie oblivion yet I found the movie to be better than most "A" action movies coming out of Hollywood.

Congrats to Dolph and JCVD for a great movie I hope to see more films of this quality from both!

After a decade-long hiatus since the abysmal "The Return", this third outing in the "Universal Soldier" cult franchise sees original stars Van Damme and Lundgren, returning to arguably their most memorable roles. Joining them are fighters Andrei "The Pitbull" Arlovski and Mike Pyle.

Now obviously the "Universal Soldier" series inevitably became dead as soon as "The Return" was released. That film was so cheesy it was unbearably bad, and it put Van Damme's career straight to the direct-to- video business (at least until "JCVD" two years ago). So should you have hopes for this movie? It was released in the United States of America, direct-to-video. That's a sign for a bad movie, no? But I live in Malaysia, and this movie (renamed "Universal Soldier: A New Beginning") was released theatrically here, giving me the chance to see one of the action heroes I grew up with, on the big screen. This is my first JCVD movie in the cinema, so I walked in expecting a cheese-fest.

My. God.

Did I really just see that movie? Was that really "Universal Soldier 3"? The film blew me and my expectations away. I mean, sure it's not gonna win any Oscars, but still, hot damn! The action is lean, mean and balls- to-the-wall brutal, prompting some faint-hearted people to look away at many points. The fight scenes were VERY well handled with actors doing 90% of their own fights/stunts. The mood of the film is very dark, brooding and moody (a complete 180 departure from the previous two); the same can be said of its John Carpenter-esquire electronic music score, which is PERFECT throughout the movie. From the moment the movie starts, the action never lets up until the very end.

The story is brief: The Russian Prime Minister's children get kidnapped by terrorists looking to extradite prisoners in exchange, to make things serious they plan to detonate a nuclear plant in Chernobyl. Their ace up their sleeve? an NGU (Next-Generation Unisol). The allies forcibly bring Luc Devereaux back into action to help thwart this threat when all hope is seemingly lost. (It helps to understand that this movie ignores all other Universal Soldier sequels, it directly follows the first one.)

Simple, no? Just like any B-movie would. But nowadays there are D-movies starring Steven Seagal, but this is a definite B-movie. Short, straight to the point, and extremely entertaining from start to finish. THIS is how you make action movies.

Van Damme looks old. And he's moody. And doesn't say a lot. The same can be said for Lundgren. However both of them improved A LOT in their acting range, which is above-average. However, Van Damme appears nearly halfway through the movie and Lundgren's overall appearance is no less than 20 minutes. But when both of them are on screen they dominate it. Before smashing through it, of course. The main villain, the NGU played by The Pitbull, is a lumbering tank on autopilot, not unlike The Terminator. That's a good thing. Pyle plays an American soldier who secretly goes to complete the rescue mission while Van Damme, Lundgren and Arlovski are punching about. He's perhaps the most likable character in the movie.

What I like about this film is its meat-and-bones approach. The actors don't say much, the story is simplistic, but the action is fast and comes at you like a speeding bullet. The main actors don't appear much, because it focuses more on the story and the action. This is good, it shows that you don't really need stars in EVERY action scene. This isn't action in the vein of Jerry Bruckheimer or Die Hard where the characters kill people with glorious music in the background and comic relief. You will find no music and no comic relief throughout the film (although there is a funny scene near the end of the movie). The used of CGI is absent in this movie (thank God for that refreshing trait). There is little shaky-cam in the movie, allowing you to see the mano-e-mano action in all its glory. All the stunts you see in the movie are REAL with a capital R. And who do we have to thank for this? Director John Hyams. He knows what he wants and boy does he delivers. His direction is taut, solid and focused throughout. And the way he directs a low-budget B-movie, imagine if he gets a bigger-budgeted project. His father is Peter Hyams, who worked with Van Damme on "Timecop" and "Sudden Death". Dad Peter works as cinematographer for this one, and he captures the bleakness of the film beautifully. It's much better than that "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt".

In short, I'm really surprised at how well-directed the film is, and I'm also surprised that I ended up really liking the movie. It's sad for it not to be released theatrically in the U.S., because it deserves that. JCVD and Lundgren still got it, but I'll be keeping an eye out for John Hyams. He looks like a very promising director.

Entertainment value: 10/10

Overall: 8/10

I have a confession to make – I have never seen a Universal Soldier film, not in its entirety anyway, nor even the original way back in 1992 when it starred Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as these programmed super soldiers who are impervious to pain, and a small troupe can take out battalions of a conventional army. For those like me who are not well versed in the mythos, fret not as this film's subtitle – a new beginning – made it a point to do a quick recap of the secret super soldier programme to bring us all up to speed to where the film now takes place.

There were some in the audience who found it rather startling that the film opened in abrupt manner, chiefly because this is meant for the straight to video market overseas. So the distributor's logo doesn't kick in to pre-empt you that this is not a trailer, but the start of the film proper. And boy does it start with a bang, with an ambitious, noisy car chase cum massacre where a small group of freedom fighters kidnap the children of the Russian Prime Minister, and demands the release of their countrymen in lockup, in which failure meant the killing of the kidnapped children, plus the detonation of another reactor in Chernobyl where they are dug in, which has enough radioactive material to cause another fallout.

This of course mobilizes a NATO-Russian alliance of sorts to fight back with 2 mission objectives under 72 hours, with the only snag in the mission being the use of an NGU (Next Generation Uni-Sol) by the opposition, played to mean perfection by Andrei Arlovski as the ultimate killing machine who feels no pain and dishes out his fair share of punishment to maim and kill without remorse. The response of course is for the coalition to send in their own Uni-Sols, which are painfully outdated and obsolete when faced with the NGJ, so all hopes rest on one man, Jean Claude Van Damme, erm, his Luc Deveraux that is.

Director John Hyams keeps it tight and relevant here by creating a film that doesn't try too much fanciful stuff. It's good ol' military and B-action all the way, which at times resembled a violent video game especially in JCVD's first mission outing when unleashed into enemy territory, adopting a third person, behind the character view as he charges and cuts through enemy ranks. Then there's some nifty camera-work as well, the highlight being a continuous take where it's a Counter-strike game-type with JCVD going from primary rifle, to secondary firearm, to default knife, and the fists as he rips through scores of faceless soldiers. I thought that was one of the best action sequences in the film, since the much touted plummeting with Dolph Lundgren, who also returned for this film, was nothing not already seen before, save for the expectation of a rematch here.

For action junkies, there is a bit of a nostalgia in seeing how our old school action heroes still have it in them to carry a movie and give the new wannabes a run for their money. Visibly aged, this film follows the trend of late with our 80s action icons coming out and banding together for one last hurrah. While this may be for the video market in the US, it certainly didn't scrimp on its limited production values to turn in something professional looking, with some impressive gory action compensating for a standard, average plot with room to grow the franchise further. Now bring on The Expendables, and boy, will we action fans just rejoice with that reunion!