The last Universal Soldier movie had shades of B movie quality, but this one takes it to another level. It’s got really bad POV camerawork for a start – not a million miles from Scott Adkin’s barely-watchable zero-budget movie One More Shot.
While the last movie never caught fire but dwindled in an area that made us think it could be about to catch fire; this movie doesn’t even hit that spot – the whole thing is flat from start to finish, making it a chore to watch, and that’s saying something coming from someone who is such a fan of this genre that I made a website dedicated to it.
Some of the action scenes are so mixed up with CGI they look cartoony.
Some of the concepts are pretty cool, kind of like waking someone up in The Matrix, but when white noise is the favoured sound effect and flashing light is the favoured visual effect, it couldn’t have been executed much worse if they tried.
It gets a bit gruesome too, when explicitly chopping off bodyparts with an axe.
It gets slightly interesting around half way through, as Scott Adkins’ character starts digging into his past, trying to remember who he was, what he did, and who his family’s murderer is. But it’s still very cold and disjointed – I can’t rate it any higher than barely Watchable. It was really a chore to watch this far – I only did it for the benefit of this review.
Scott Adkins’ first serious fight scene, a little over an hour into this movie – after the car chase – started off boring, but it soon got tasty when it became apparent that Adkins’s character is a far superior fighter to the most modern UNISOL – the main antagonist – from the previous movie, played by Andrei Arlovski. Does this mean Adkins is in fact the best of all the UNISOLs? Is he capable of beating the whole crew including Van Damme? Now it’s getting slightly interesting – just a shame we’re already an hour in and have had to endure a barely watchable movie up until this point. The back end of the movie is more comfortably Watchable, pushing on So-So, but still quite cold & gloomy.
Scott Adkins is the main character in this movie. He’s the main protagonist. After him, Jean-Claude Van Damme appears to be the main antagonist, for most of the movie, although he may actually be a good guy. He doesn’t get much screen time, but is still one of the main characters after Adkins. Andrei Arlovski also gets a fair amount of screen time as the main active handyman working for Van Damme. Dolph Lundgren also makes a few appearances – he appears to be second in command of the guys working in Van Damme’s crew of freed UNISOLs. You may have also noticed Roy Jones Jr – possibly the greatest boxer of all time (in the TV era, under Queensberry rules) – having a scrap with Andrei Arlovski in the UNISOL mess hall. After getting beaten up by Arlovski, then pummelled by the whole crew, Van Damme steps in and shoots him dead. Honestly, I thought I saw him, but then I thought that’s not possible – then I saw the rolling credits at the end and yes, it really was him. That’s probably the coolest thing about this movie.
In summary, I’m going to rate this movie Watchable, owing to its So-So second half. I’m being a bit generous with the rating here, because the first half is probably best described as Unwatchable, so it seems a bit unfair to the other movies rated Watchable which are a bit better than this one, and the other movies rated Unwatchable which are really no worse than this one, if focusing on the first hour. The second half is really its saving grace, and is my only excuse for rating this movie Watchable.