Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

BA_Harrison With the help of a corrupt scientist (Kerry Shale) and his 'next generation' Universal Soldier (Andrei 'The Pitbull' Arlovski), a group of political terrorists kidnap the Russian prime minister's children and threaten to blow up the Chernobyl power station unless their demands are met. Decommissioned first generation Universal Soldier Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is reactivated and tasked with rescuing the hostages, his mission not only pitting him against the new improved 'Uni-Sol', but also his old adversary Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren).A pair of old-school action stars whose best days are behind them, a couple of ex-UFC fighters turned 'actors', and a writer/director/editor who has yet to prove his worth in the action field: not exactly impressive credentials, but somehow this reboot for the Universal Soldier franchise isn't as bad as one might expect. Although John Hyam's plot is hardly groundbreaking stuff, his direction and editing is surprisingly good, meaning that the film succeeds where it matters most: in delivering hard-hitting and very brutal action with plenty of blood and gore.The film starts immediately as it means to go on—with an exhilarating kidnap scene in which plenty of people die horribly, lots of stuff gets destroyed, and Andrei 'The Pitbull' Arlovski has plenty of opportunity to glower menacingly and cause much pain (something that he naturally does rather well). Jean Claude just about manages to keep up with the newcomer proving he still has a few cool moves under his body armour, particularly during the inevitable smack-down against Lundgren (it's hard to believe that they have a combined age of over 100!).ittedly, the simplistic story-line is all a bit predictable and matters do get a tad dull during the non-action scenes, but any film that features Dolph Lundgren getting his head impaled on a metal pipe and then having his brains blown out with a shotgun has got to be worth a look in my book.

smoggyb like many i enjoyed the first movie, pure popcorn and better for it, this one is a different beast. i could tell you the plot, but why bother, its above me in the plot section, so go back and read it. at first its Bourne meets modern warfare, it doesn't give the audience what it wants, it gives it what it already knows, but there are suggestions of something more under the surface, jcvd was a good film, there, i said it, and i think that film infects this one, it is a mutant hybrid of both his old and new movies, and if you want to compare, i would go with machete, the Robert Rodriguez flick, it tries for nobility and sleaze and doesn't quite achieve either, but the simple fact that it tries demands my respect. i wont even bother with the plot,(snipers, anyone?) its some of the, as some one said before, boring dialogue parts that i like most, the Dolph lungren death scene is something special, maybe stealing from blade runner, but with something more. his finest 15 minutes and if you have half a brain you understand this is why he came back for this. lungren becomes the thinker, jcvd the killing machine, it is quite shocking and sad, this is a movie about the past and future, age and a contemplation on death, it is a view on what it is to be who we are and our purpose in life, be it good or bad, it is a tragedy of small proportions, the hero saves the day by having his humanity stripped from him, becomes what he was created to be, not what he wants to be. i gave this film a rating of 6 but it doesn't do justice, i love b movies with more to say than they can afford, see john sayles, James Cameron, Sam raimi, they reward me more than Oscar baiting efforts, its the surprise and love of the genre i enjoy so much. watch this movie, just for the joy of filmmakers doing what they love, right or wrong.

vic_mackey_uk Watched this on TV, not expecting very much at all, but I don't recall seeing the first or any subsequent sequels, if that made a difference? The plot has been described in other reviews, so I won't repeat it. The direction was great, especially the set-piece opening sequence. I imagine it was achieved on a much smaller budget than the blockbuster movies, so much credit to Peter Hyams the director. The editing and cinematography was also excellent, created mood and atmosphere and kept the action ripping along. Never once was I bored during this movie.Arlovsky was a powerful screen presence right from the first scene. He played a "neo-Arnie silent pseudo-cyborg" character, similar to that which Arnie launched his career with in The Terminator. I don't know if Arlovsky will continue acting, but after recent losses in the octagon, it's worth consideration. He has more presence than a mere heavy and personifies the cold, ruthless, Russian killer character effortlessly. He showed us as much as Arnie did in The Terminator, so who knows? I was especially impressed by Mike Pyle, another MMA fighter, acting as Capt Kevin Burke. I have to it, although I knew the name from watching MMA, I wasn't sure of what he looked like. Half-way through the film, I couldn't decide if the Burke character was played by a "proper" actor, or an MMA "plant". His acting was very naturalistic and he definitely has a career in action films and character actor roles outside of fighting.I think both MMA actors did themselves much credit in this film and blew away Dolph Lundgren - and he has made a career out of action movies! (That is intended as a compliment guys, although many may not see it as such!) In the end, the film is what it is: characters are two-dimensional, dialogue a bit cheesy, the storyline predictable. But it delivers what it sets out to do at a classy, stylish, visually interesting pace, such that you will probably be prepared to overlook these shortcomings, sit back and just enjoy the film.If the DVD has any decent extras, I'll definitely search it out and add it to my collection.

oneguyrambling There was a brief period after Wrong Bet aka Lionheart and Bloodsport came out when Van Damme mania was at its highest and they tried to maximise this by churning out as many films as possible. Don't worry it didn't last long.The original Universal Soldier – to me at least – signified the beginning of the extremely drawn out end. It took a vaguely intriguing concept and wasted it by taking every short cut and turning the film into a sub-B movie shlockfest.Teenage boys probably loved it, brain-dead guys who like seeing sh*t blown up good probably loved it. I thought it was crap.But whaddya know enough people watched it to justify a sequel which was even worse, and I think even more sequels followed... none that I watched.Then some 20 years later here I am in the video shop needing one more DVD to complete my 3 for $10 deal and what do I see? Perhaps it was due to frustration at the lack of good titles on the shelf, perhaps it was a brain fade, perhaps it was a simple mental trigger that conjured up memories of classic Van Damme.In any case whatever it was here we are.A pretty effective opening gets us right into the action. The children of a high-up are kidnapped in a hail of buwets that kill many innocent bystanders (are there ever any guilty bystanders? Felons and criminals that just like standing around watching things happen around them?). A long car chase ends when the getaway car reaches "da-choppa" – as Arnie would say – and off they go.The scene is perhaps 10 minutes, totally dialogue free and works very well.Promising so far.It turns out that the kidnappers are bad guy terrorists who have set up base camp in Chernobyl and are threatening to set off a bomb that will release all the pent-up radiation trapped since the 80s meltdown.(Now logic says that the threat of another nuclear meltdown would be enough to demand attention from the government and that kidnapping the kids of a dignitary is a little redundant and unnecessary; but if there is one thing that action movies have taught us over the years it is that you can't rescue a bomb.) The first Universal Soldier introduced the concept of super-soldiers created from reanimated corpses. They were largely immune to most deadly situations and immensely efficient in both firepower and manpower, as one soldier could do the job of dozens – you didn't even have to pay them! Of course that wasn't enough for a movie so they made one go haywire (Dolph Lundgren) and had Van-Damme have to hunt him down and save the day.In this "reality" Unisols as they became known have been banned for decades, however a rogue scientist with delusions of magnificence has been secretly redeg a new and improved Unisol... The Unisol to end all Unisols.The terrorists have hired the evil scientist and his creation to provide the muscle for their operation, and we see chilling evidence of the new Super-Sol's efficiency and abilities when the base is attacked by the army.So Plan B = Fight fire with fire. Four of the old-school Unisols are thawed out to defeat the Big guy – let's call him Larry – Larry toasts the other 4 in about 7 minutes in a variety of brutal and violent ways. Advantage : Naughty guys.But wait there's one more… The only remaining Unisol is the still thawed out Van Damme who they have tried to reintegrate back into society with mixed results – if the definition of mixed results include the death of a simple coffee shop worker.The guy has a name but let's call him JCVD from here. He is retrained and unleashed on the scene to save the day and kill the bad guys, mainly Larry.Only that ain't all folks. The scientist has kept another weapon up his sleeve… In the end it was always inevitable that JCVD would take on the bad guys for all the bikkies, otherwise why is he on the DVD cover. The addition of the kids provides a "human" element to the film which was really not required. Isn't big muscly guys punching each other reward enough? There are some good long combat scenes and thankfully they manage to make it look like two beefy guys with almost superpowers going at it, rather than two guys on wires clumsily pawing at each other. The punches and kicks seem to have real impact and there were a few blows that made the lips purse together in an "ow that musta hurt" way.All in all Universal Soldier: Regeneration is solid B movie "weekly-rental" fare, for guys aged 16 – 39 at least, the inclusions of Van Damme and a Lundgren cameo aren't likely to get you misty eyed but they don't hurt either, and the big Larry Unisol is legitimately fearsome and capable as the dead-eyed robotic bad guy.I had low expectations from the point I pressed play, this met all of them and exceeded a few. If the film was an employee this might not put the guy in line for promotion, but he is definitely carrying his weight.Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. An efficient low budget shoot-em-up that is as entertaining as it could be considering the limitations of the material and the team behind it.