“There is no end, always another John.”

Justin’s rating: Warning if you don’t like strobe light effects — just saying.

Justin’s review: The odd trajectory of the Universal Soldier series took it to its most strange place for its (currently) final installment. What began as a popcorn scifi actioner in the early ’90s wrapped up as a [checks] horror action thriller in the vein of Heart of Darkness where our former hero is now the sort-of villain.

And it’s actually well-done… for what it is. It’s a sequel that takes the undead soldier premise and does something interesting with it. Far more interesting than fighting some smarmy late-90s AI, at least.

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning kicks off with one heck of a bang. Masked men invade the home of a man named John (Scott Adkins) and shoot his wife and daughter after beating him senseless. The shocker is that the leader of this gang is Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who’s now announced to be a deserter leading his own private army.

If that’s not enough motivation for revenge, John’s then prodded and manipulated by the government to hunt Luc down. So we follow this guy while questions trail behind him — why did Luc kill his family? Who is John really? What does the government see in him? And what will he find at the end of the road? Oh, and how is Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) back yet again?

There are answers to these, and I won’t get in the business of spoiling them. Suffice to say, it’s a twisty-turny path.

If you thought Universal Soldier: Regeneration was bleak and gritty, well then, this easily tops it. It’s an action movie, yes, but for the first time in this series, the story skews to psychological horror. Disturbing images, cryptic phrases, and strange folks on loan from David Lynch’s universe abound here, and you have to ask if director Peter Hyams was forced to do another Universal Soldier but really wanted to do a different movie… and decided to combine the two.

It’s an unsettling movie. It’s a mean movie. It’s a brutal, in-your-face movie. And that may be too much for some people. It wasn’t pleasant to sit through, and I don’t think I liked it in the end, but I appreciate the attempt at being different. I just would’ve preferred something fun, even if it would be more tropish, than this cruise up the river to find Colonel Kurtz and his wacky battalion.

As I step back and look at the Universal Soldier franchise as a whole, I’m at a loss to sum it up. It’s an idea that’s explored in a variety of formats to a variety of outcomes, but altogether, it doesn’t fit. It’s a mishmash. It’s absolutely wild that it went for a full half-dozen movies, but I can’t say that I’d want to watch any of them again. It’s a strange conclusion for a marathon, but that’s where I’ve arrived.

Josh’s review: Okay, I love it when they make the actors I want to see the largest part of the box art and then I watch the movie and they are hardly in it. I am sure everyone knows that is sarcasm. I had a feeling Scott Adkins would show up eventually but, if I can quote the Matrix, “Not like this… not like this.” I actually like Adkins, a kind of protégé of Van Damme, who plays the main character John. However, I am here for Van Damme dammit.

John is a man who survives a horrific break-in and witnesses the murder of his wife and child at the hands of, duh Duh DUH, Luc Deveraux. After waking up from a coma, he suffers amnesia, which is a handicap in his search for revenge. Along the way he uncovers the truth about his identity and his place in the government’s search for Deveraux. In the time since the last film, Luc has gone underground and is raising an army of freed Universal Soldiers that have been planted as sleeper agents across the country.

Hyams returns to direct this sequel to his previous Universal Soldier offering, Regeneration. This go around has turned out much darker than any of the previous entries, bordering on a straight-up horror movie. John goes down a rabbit hole that is filled with tragedy, violence, mind control, drugs, and government cover-ups, ultimately learning of his own role in these horrible events.

There is no joy to be found in this film whatsoever. There’s not even a lovable character to glom onto. As for John, I found myself feeling sorry for him, then hating him. What kind of main character is that? The tone of this movie can be summed up as “hateful.”

Scott Adkins shows off his martial arts skills and physical prowess in his multiple fights against returning Regeneration alum, Andre Arlovski. I’m assuming Arlovski is a clone of the NGU because he blew up last go around. Dolph Lundgren is back as our good buddy Andrew Scott, another assumed clone because he doesn’t have a giant hole in his head. His part is small, and you could really tell his speed didn’t match Adkins in their fight. He acted more as a lumbering monster than skilled martial artist. Van Damme’s fight with Adkins is also a letdown and provides a disappointing end to the climax. These are especially noticeable following the great fights between John and the NGU.

As I mentioned above, the movie is essentially a horror movie. The amount of blood and gore in this film rivals some of the great splatter horror out there. John is literally soaked in red goo for a majority of this film, and limbs/extremities are constantly coming off. There is a scene that is a great metaphor for this film where a man has his brains blown out all over the windshield of a car. The wipers are going but I found it hard to see the thing I was supposed to look at through all the blood.

The plot here is a bit convoluted and it leads the franchise in a weird direction I didn’t think it needed to go. The idea of reanimated soldiers is still a cool one, and it feels unnecessary to drop in a bunch of clones and mind control stuff. I suppose that’s why we haven’t had another one of these since. If you want to see some brutal fights, this might be worth your while, but if you are looking for something like Universal Soldier, you won’t find it here.

Intermission!

• “There’s no monsters in the house, sweetie.” well now you’ve guaranteed 100% that there will be many monsters coming for you
• Wow, how many times can a man be hit with a crowbar and not pass out?
• Okay, not afraid to kill women and children.
• Is this a UniSol sex dungeon? What is happening here?
• This strobe is not great.
• Dude just home-runned the top of this man’s head.
• Oh good, the trackers have gotten an upgrade and they moved them from the back of the leg.
• This movie ends like The Matrix in a way except if Neo was like, “f**k this, I choose to believe the ‘reality’ the machines made up for me.” What is the message here?
• Buns Count: 0 – Ding-dong count: 1
• “You will be freed. You will serve him.”