The UniSols Are Back
Universal Soldier: Regeneration is a much smarter and more well thought out action film than the previous two. To many folks, that understandably doesn’t mean a whole lot given the first two entries into the series were poor. Regeneration isn’t a reboot of the series, but it is sort of a re-envisioning of it. It preserves the core events of the first film (while wisely skipping anything having to do with The Return) and takes the narrative in a bright new direction.
Believe it or not, there is a story here and it’s a rather good one. Set in present day, a band of Russian rebels has managed to take hold of the old Chernobyl plant with intentions to destroy reactor #3, a move that would release a catastrophic amount of radiation. The leader of this resistance, Commander Topov (played by Zahary Baharov) wants both revenge for the death of his father and freedom for over two hundred of his fellow resistance fighters that are being held captive by the Russian government. In addition to the threat to destroy reactor #3 at Chernobyl if his demands aren’t met with 72 hours, he has also kidnapped the two children of Russia’s Prime Minister.
In response, an American and Russian strike team coordinate an attack on Chernobyl, with four first generation Universal Soldiers providing assistance. The four Universal Soldiers, which do not include Luc or Andrew (Dolph), are activated to fight the NGU. You see, the resistance is more than just a rag tag group of soldiers — they possess NGU, an advanced Universal Solider that was created by Kerry Shale’s character, Dr. Colin. Colin’s NGU, played by Andrei ‘The Pit Bull’ Arlovski, is a super tough version of the original Universal Soldier. He’s programmed to guard the explosives set around the reactor against, a task he proves very capable of.
Meanwhile, Luc, JCVD’s character, has been working with Dr. Sandra (Emily Joyce) in Switzerland for the past two years. The goal of his therapy there is to reintroduce him to society, but the project is put on hold when the American forces and Dr. Porter (Garry Cooper) realize they need Luc’s abilities to combat NGU. While Luc is being quickly rehabilitated to full combat readiness, Captain Kevin Burke (played by MMA fighter Mike Pyle) attempts to extract the Prime Minister’s children covertly. This was Mike Pyle’s first acting gig and he did a heck of a job playing a skilled American soldier. Finally, Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) is introduced around the halfway point of the film. I thought the writers did a nice job of playing their cards — you won’t see Luc or Andrew in action until you’re well into the film. Hyams and crew did a great job of building the anticipation, and then capitalizing on it.
No matter how you slice it, Universal Soldier: Regeneration is not only the best film in the series, it’s a hell of an action film on its own. There’s a lot of reason why the film is as good as it is. Granted, a lot of the framework for the story was already set, but Hyams does a nice job of using the history of the series and improving upon it. Action scenes are very well done and blended nicely with drama and plot developments. I also loved the location and cinematography. The film was shot at an old abandoned steel mill in Russia and it fits the atmosphere and mood of the film perfectly.
The Blu-ray
US: Regeneration on Blu-ray doesn’t disappoint. You would expect nothing less than very high quality HD video and you certainly get that here. Outside of several scenes that had a heavy blue tint to them, the film looks fantastic and crisp. I’ve already mentioned that the location of filming was quite ideal and fitting for the film, and that only helps in how amazing this movie looks on Blu-ray. Of course, the 5.1 DTS-HD audio is great for all of the action and dialogue.
More extra features would have been nice, but I enjoyed what little there was offered here. You’ll get:
-Audio Commentary with Dolph Lundgren and Director John Hyams
-Behind the Line (18m, HD) – A nice making of feature with plenty of production footage and cast and crew interviews. It’s neat to hear Dolph and JCVD talk about getting back into the series and you’ll also hear from the other major characters as well as several key crew members.
-movieIQ & BD-Live – movieIQ is something new we’re seeing with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) Blu-rays and it’s kind of like Universal’s U-Control feature whereby viewers can get information about scenes and the film in general while they watch the movie. As for BD-Live, at least for now this is just a link to SPHE’s BD-Live portal which has various trailers and previews and so forth. Speaking of trailers, there are a half dozen or so trailers from various SPHE releases included on this disc as well.
And that’s a wrap; let’s get to the summary…