Universal Soldiers

This movies has them all: story line, drama, action, love, sex, special effects. No, I didn't lost my mind, I was just jocking it's a COMPLETE GARBAGE.

It goes around a failed experiment and that's about it with the story line. The characters are weak, but why do you need strong characters when everything is about shooting aimlessly and getting killed. Most of the actors I think were hired on "the cheapest we can get" premises.

You can watch this as an alternative to a Comedy or a Documentary. It is actually funny how bad the roles and the actors are, and you can consider it a case study about bad movies.

Well done Griff Furst, keep trying, by mistake you will eventually make something good.

This film is terrible. Truly awful. However, watched with friends whilst drinking it becomes one of the funniest films I have ever seen.

The acting is stupendously bad. The Storyline is non-existent. The Marines are the most incompetent people in the world. The special effects are laughable. The music is bad..very bad. I could go on and on...

BUT WAIT! This film is terribly (empahsis on terribly) amazing for the following:

The black guy - He is unintentionally hilarious! From his screaming down the radio, to his "fall-out" line when their not even falling out. But for me, the greatest piece of cinema I have ever seen in my life was when he did his super marine roll through the air for no reason whatsoever. It has to be seen to be believed.

All in all, don't watch this film is you expect some kind of masterpiece. Only watch it when intoxicated and with friends.

For those that think that the Asylum only puts out crappy Z-rated excruciatingly bad horror films, like such stinkers as "Halloween Night", "Massacre at Cutter's Cove", and "Snakes on a Train", you'd be dead wrong as they also put out crappy Z-rated excruciatingly bad sci-fi films like this one. Despite the title, this has absolutely NO relation to the Universal Soldier films, and owes much much to Predator and terminator (not to tarnish either of those two classics by comparison trust me). Anyways in this putrid little number, a group of the most highly ineffectual members of the military since "Hills have Eyes 2" are stalked by the lamest looking Borg-wanna be cyborgs that I've ever seen. Most of the film the enemy is off-screen, substituted by lame-ass predator-vision so it relies on the characters whom are all cliché boring cardboard cutouts that you truly don't care if they live or die. The ending in particular is so laughably atrocious that one can't help but feel their brain liquefying just by viewing it.

My Grade: F

Maybe I need to re-order my bottom 5 Asylum movies, because Universal Soldiers is deserving of a spot there. You can really tell how low on budget the film was, the editing is the choppiest of any film I've seen in a while, while the scenery is dully lit and the effects are incredibly fake-looking, most of them don't even look like what they were meant to be. Even the props are bad, there was one that looked as though it was made of wood but seeing as the prop broke it could as well have been made of the cheapest plastic anybody could find. The music is repetitive, has no momentum whatsoever and actually feels dated, while the sound effects verge on bizarre, some even are repeated over and over again. The script is stilted and feels too talky often, while the story is so thin in structure and so ponderous in pace that you question whether there is one at all and when there is the all too few signs of one it's predictably done. The characters are annoying and are never developed, while the acting from everybody involved reads of everybody just improvising in a very bored way on screen. Overall, Universal Soldiers is an awful film that has no life to it. 1/10 Bethany Cox

You know, I wonder what this movie would have been like had I been able to hear what was going on half the time. Really, it sounded awful, absolutely awful. I couldn't hear half the dialog and even if I could it was overpowered by heavy nature sounds (including one particularly annoying seagull) and bad/inappropriate music.

That said, I thought the film looked pretty good. I was impressed by some genuinely cinematic moments. Take away about 80% of the jv "predator vision" and don't artificially speed up shots (especially during fight sequences) and this film could have looked great. I like the "Saving Private Ryan" bland colors and choppy images but dial the latter back especially during the exposition sequences; it's too much at the wrong times.

There was also some promising talent in front of the camera. Rick Malabri was quite photogenic though his character felt a bit one-sided and Kristen Quintrall was quite entertaining to watch though perhaps an errant boob falling free from her loose-fitting uniform whilst hanging from the rope snare would have enhanced the viewing experience. I would watch her work again...

All in all I think of this film more in terms of what it could have been rather than what it was. It was butchered by bad sound and what I'm sure must have been too much rush and poor creative decisions by some producer. I could feel the art trying to break through but being stifled by time and business constraints. If nothing else, I hope all involved learned from the experience. If the talent of a select few is ever fully realized, than we might come to expect better, even great, things from an otherwise dismal and confusing film-making model.