Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)

When I saw that they were actually releasing a "Universal Soldier" sequel in theaters, I just shook my head. When will Van Damme just give it up already, how many times can his movies bomb before studio executives stop sending him scripts? Honestly, who green-lighted this movie in the first place? Did they see money-making potential somewhere? Personally, I don't think there was a script, I think they just hooked Van Damme up with Michael Jai White (anyone remember "Spawn"?) and Bill Goldberg and said, "you guys are basically gonna kick the crap out of each other and we'll try to incorporate some kind of plot line into all the violence". Van Damme is at his usual acting worst in this picture, but surprisingly Michael Jai White and Bill Goldberg do an above par job of acting. The fight scenes are mesmerizing, particularly the flawlessly executed fight between Van Damme and Jai White. Goldberg has some pretty good fight scenes himself, and he even gets to incorporate some of his trade-mark wrestling moves. Van Damme proves that he is still at the top of his martial arts game, even though he is graying and getting older. Never-the-less, he is still a pleasure to watch in action, it's just his acting that makes you look at your watch couple of minutes when there is not action going on. The romance between Van Damme and the reporter is so contrived and shallow that it will make you nauseous, as will the whole sub-plot (if you can call it one) with Van Damme's daughter. But if you can look past a silly plot and horrible acting, you will find a great no holds-barred action movie that boasts some incredible fights and lots of explosions and gratuitous deaths. My only other complaint other than a lack of script and an over-abundance of bad acting is that the sets looked too cheap. They looked as they were borrowed from some straight-to-video movie set...hmmmmm? Anyway, I wouldn't pay $6.50 to see this, but I would recommend seeing it when it's at the cheapie theater.

Fmovies: There are really only 3 reasons to watch this: Michael Jai White has some quality screen time; Kiana Tom is quite gorgeous except for her dismal second incarnation, and this film has the most hilariously gratuitous T & A sequence since Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder hid out in the poledancing club in Stir Crazy.

Actually I quite like Van Damme - he makes martial arts look attainable. You can go to your classes and think "I'll never be as good as Jet Li, the guy's superhuman. But I might just get as good as Van Damme someday."

Well... it's not that bad as you might think when you see the votes. Okay, there is not much of a story but it is a tough action movie with very nice action sequences and man-to-man fights. But who the hell did that soundtrack??! Uh, let's see...

Universal Soldier: The Return fmovies. i anticipated this movie like i wait for any new JCVD film. i love van damme and i think he has a lot of potential, give him a 100 million dollars film and a director like michael bay, and watch how he captures the screen and the whole holywood. Universal soldier II is a nice action film, but lacks a lot of basic A film characteristics. van damme shows some good fighting, but mic rodgers didnt shoot'em right. he needs to learn some stuff from john woo's & van damme's HARD TARGET, except of the scene when van damme fights S.E.T.H. this scene is the greatest scene in the film. it was also nice to see bil goldberg's humor as a big hard-ass unisol being kick-assed by van damme in various parts of the movie. i was sad as the plot took a turn when the main computer S.E.T.H took control over the facility and sent over the unisols to take over the world or whatever. i think it could have been better, if the scripters would have think twice. in conclusion, wait for video, but don't miss this film at all, after all, van damme is van damme.

Wow what pure garbage! Well At least I knew it was going be bad before I saw it. I mean first of all it's a Jean Claude Van Damme movie. Secondly, without Dolph Lundgren the first one would have been a bore. I guess you can sum this one up by saying that it was so bad that it was funny. Yes, this movie was hilarious. It made absolutely no sense, had no plot, just a bunch of stuff that happens and a bunch of people get blown up. For example this girl in the movie whom Luc just met like 3 hours ago at the most is telling him at the end of the movie that she can't live without him. PLEASE!!! I have never watched more predictable movie.

I like Van Dammes movies and Universal soldier was one of my favorites(along with Blood sport and Hard target). I looked forward to a sequel, but when I saw the reviews, "The worst film I've seen" it also earned it self a average of 3.0(29th of Feb 2000) on this sight. But I had to hire it out, and I was honestly surprised. DON'T watch it unless youv'e seen the first or it will make no sense. It doesn't explain the first story, it only says that Luc(Van Damme) was one of the first uni sols. It then doesn't tell you about the new project, and how Luc became involved, also it says about the main female characture in the first, who is now his wife and is dead, how did she die?

Although it doesn't make much sense it is a good action film with some great fight scenes especially ones with Goldburg, and the final showdown. So make your own decision and watch. entertaining 4/10