← Back to Reviews
in
#619 - Universal Soldier: Regeneration
John Hyams, 2009
When a Russian terrorist kidnaps an official's children and plans to set off a nuclear weapon inside the ruins of Chernobyl, an elite unit of commandos is brought in to handle the situation.
Every once in a while there's a cinematic proposition that sounds so weird that you're intrigued enough to check it out. The original Universal Soldier was a rather tiresome exercise in sci-fi action starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as a pair of soldiers who die during the Vietnam War only to be brought back to life decades later as part of an experimental super-soldier program. The resulting film obvious drew unfavourable comparisons to similar thrillers such as The Terminator and RoboCop, but the core concept had enough untapped potential that various attempts were made to continue the story in one way or another. After a couple of disastrous made-for-TV movies and one notoriously awful theatrical release, the franchise found a surprising foothold in the direct-to-video market. Up-and-coming director John Hyams (son of prolific journeyman director Peter) got the chance to offer his own contributions to the franchise, which somehow gained some interesting word-of-mouth over how he was apparently able to take an infamously terrible B-movie franchise and spin out not one but two solid action films as a result. That's the proposition that sounded too intriguing to ignore, so of course I rented out Regeneration and its follow-up, 2012's Day of Reckoning.
Regeneration takes place in Russia, where a terrorist seeking the release of political prisoners theatrens to set off an explosive device inside the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that'll not only create a radioactive cloud but also kill the Russian president's children, who have been kidnapped and brought to the heart of the ruins. To make matters worse, they have joined forces with a former scientist from the Universal Soldier project, who has brought with him a high-powered prototype that can and will make mincemeat of any regular soldiers. To this end, the military soon feels like they need to send a superman to do a superman's job, so they look up Luc Devereaux (Van Damme), the hero of the franchise who is currently being rehabilitated in a secure facility. It's not exactly the most complex of narratives, but it gets the job done and is at least preferable to the insultingly straightforward Terminator-like chase of the original film. Of course, the film does seem to relegate Van Damme to a supporting role for much of the film, instead spending much of its first half/two-thirds developing the central conflict around a first response team of commandos. The slow-burn nature is ultimately more of a hindrance to the film's plotting than a help, though of course the second half definitely pays off enough to redeem the whole film a bit.
In very much the same manner as the plot, the characterisation is pretty utilitarian for the most part as it sets up some stock players in its narrative about terrorism, with the key difference being that the terrorist leader and the rogue scientist do naturally end up having conflicting goals. This much extends to the performances, which are all serviceable and little more besides that. Van Damme's admittedly stiff and thickly accented demeanour has helped to sell him as a man who's been broken by the knowledge of what he's become and has struggled to both process and cope with it; even in his relatively small amount of screen-time, he's still able to communicate enough inner turmoil as he tries to recover only to be thrust back into the battle anyway (which might just be the only place he truly feels at home). Lundgren, whose turn as Devereaux's homicidally deranged arch-nemesis Andrew Scott was one of the original film's greatest strengths, manages to bring an even greater intensity when he eventually shows up and gives a stand-out performance greater than his limited screen-time would suggest (though he arguably follows a significantly condensed version of his arc from the original film as he quickly breaks free of his handlers and launches his own agenda). The two still have capable physical prowess, whether they're facing off against each other or the next-generation soldier (Andrei "Pitbull" Arlovski, whose turn as a mute hulk of a man doesn't require much in the way of acting chops but is still fairly intimidating anyway).
Still, the acting and writing doesn't need to be brilliant to make this film work and, whatever the film's other flaws may be, Hyams can definitely craft some decent-looking action on a minimal straight-to-video budget. The cinematography is grainy yet lurid and the editing is remarkable is that it is full of quick cuts between many different angles without being disorienting (a rare feat in an era where action directors are all too willing to use such techniques as a hollow short-cut to fast-paced excitement). Another strength of the original film was that the best action moments involved the superpowered characters duking it out with one another or with surprisingly capable normal humans, and the same strength is evident through the film's well-choreographed sequences that either feature the two leads or actual MMA fighters. The structuring of the action is also handled reasonably well, with the decision to confine it to a single location and present new threats and resolutions at a steadily escalating pace only getting stronger as the film progresses. While I definitely think that Regeneration makes fairly strong use of its source's potential to craft a half-decent action flick that has some good moments, it's still not quite enough to overcome its direct-to-video limitations and it is also perhaps a bit too dependent on its connection to the original film to be good in its own right. I mainly watched this as a warm-up to the more promising Day of Reckoning, and while there's no harm in doing that, it's not exactly essential.
John Hyams, 2009
When a Russian terrorist kidnaps an official's children and plans to set off a nuclear weapon inside the ruins of Chernobyl, an elite unit of commandos is brought in to handle the situation.
Every once in a while there's a cinematic proposition that sounds so weird that you're intrigued enough to check it out. The original Universal Soldier was a rather tiresome exercise in sci-fi action starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as a pair of soldiers who die during the Vietnam War only to be brought back to life decades later as part of an experimental super-soldier program. The resulting film obvious drew unfavourable comparisons to similar thrillers such as The Terminator and RoboCop, but the core concept had enough untapped potential that various attempts were made to continue the story in one way or another. After a couple of disastrous made-for-TV movies and one notoriously awful theatrical release, the franchise found a surprising foothold in the direct-to-video market. Up-and-coming director John Hyams (son of prolific journeyman director Peter) got the chance to offer his own contributions to the franchise, which somehow gained some interesting word-of-mouth over how he was apparently able to take an infamously terrible B-movie franchise and spin out not one but two solid action films as a result. That's the proposition that sounded too intriguing to ignore, so of course I rented out Regeneration and its follow-up, 2012's Day of Reckoning.
Regeneration takes place in Russia, where a terrorist seeking the release of political prisoners theatrens to set off an explosive device inside the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that'll not only create a radioactive cloud but also kill the Russian president's children, who have been kidnapped and brought to the heart of the ruins. To make matters worse, they have joined forces with a former scientist from the Universal Soldier project, who has brought with him a high-powered prototype that can and will make mincemeat of any regular soldiers. To this end, the military soon feels like they need to send a superman to do a superman's job, so they look up Luc Devereaux (Van Damme), the hero of the franchise who is currently being rehabilitated in a secure facility. It's not exactly the most complex of narratives, but it gets the job done and is at least preferable to the insultingly straightforward Terminator-like chase of the original film. Of course, the film does seem to relegate Van Damme to a supporting role for much of the film, instead spending much of its first half/two-thirds developing the central conflict around a first response team of commandos. The slow-burn nature is ultimately more of a hindrance to the film's plotting than a help, though of course the second half definitely pays off enough to redeem the whole film a bit.
In very much the same manner as the plot, the characterisation is pretty utilitarian for the most part as it sets up some stock players in its narrative about terrorism, with the key difference being that the terrorist leader and the rogue scientist do naturally end up having conflicting goals. This much extends to the performances, which are all serviceable and little more besides that. Van Damme's admittedly stiff and thickly accented demeanour has helped to sell him as a man who's been broken by the knowledge of what he's become and has struggled to both process and cope with it; even in his relatively small amount of screen-time, he's still able to communicate enough inner turmoil as he tries to recover only to be thrust back into the battle anyway (which might just be the only place he truly feels at home). Lundgren, whose turn as Devereaux's homicidally deranged arch-nemesis Andrew Scott was one of the original film's greatest strengths, manages to bring an even greater intensity when he eventually shows up and gives a stand-out performance greater than his limited screen-time would suggest (though he arguably follows a significantly condensed version of his arc from the original film as he quickly breaks free of his handlers and launches his own agenda). The two still have capable physical prowess, whether they're facing off against each other or the next-generation soldier (Andrei "Pitbull" Arlovski, whose turn as a mute hulk of a man doesn't require much in the way of acting chops but is still fairly intimidating anyway).
Still, the acting and writing doesn't need to be brilliant to make this film work and, whatever the film's other flaws may be, Hyams can definitely craft some decent-looking action on a minimal straight-to-video budget. The cinematography is grainy yet lurid and the editing is remarkable is that it is full of quick cuts between many different angles without being disorienting (a rare feat in an era where action directors are all too willing to use such techniques as a hollow short-cut to fast-paced excitement). Another strength of the original film was that the best action moments involved the superpowered characters duking it out with one another or with surprisingly capable normal humans, and the same strength is evident through the film's well-choreographed sequences that either feature the two leads or actual MMA fighters. The structuring of the action is also handled reasonably well, with the decision to confine it to a single location and present new threats and resolutions at a steadily escalating pace only getting stronger as the film progresses. While I definitely think that Regeneration makes fairly strong use of its source's potential to craft a half-decent action flick that has some good moments, it's still not quite enough to overcome its direct-to-video limitations and it is also perhaps a bit too dependent on its connection to the original film to be good in its own right. I mainly watched this as a warm-up to the more promising Day of Reckoning, and while there's no harm in doing that, it's not exactly essential.