The Returnining
The original Universal Soldier saw action superstar Jean Claude Van Damme squaring off against another action superstar, Dolph Lundgren. The sci-fi story was about a team of reanimated soldiers that the US government augmented with super-human abilities. Van Damme’s character, Luc Deveraux, was the protagonist and it was up to him to fight off Lundgren and the other goons. Overall, it was a decent, at best, film in the vein of the Terminator films. Unlike the Terminator films, one watch of Universal Soldier is sufficient.
In The Return, Van Damme reprises his role and this time must combat SETH, a top secret, highly advanced computer that puts itself into a UniSols brain. Now, SETH and the other UniSols he’s leading, including the laughable “Romeo,” played by ex-WWE star Bill Goldberg, are intent on escaping and wrecking havoc. Conveniently, Van Damme meets the lone journalist who infiltrates the base, Erin Young, played by Heidi Schanz. What’s so weird about this is that her character, and her relationship to Deveraux, is extremely similar to what Ally Walker’s character was in the first film. I didn’t think the character was very good in the first film, and it’s even worse in The Return. Additionally, Daniel von Bargen was cast as the general of the Army response force that awaits outside of the research lab, ready to destroy it. Daniel is a good actor, but I think he was just a bad choice for this role because he seems so clueless.
All that aside, The Return is an awkward blend of sci-fi cheese and mediocre action. It’s not a fun film to watch; fortunately, it’s only eighty-two minutes long.
On Blu-ray
The Blu-ray release of Universal Soldier: The Return offers respectable presentation quality. Being created in 1999, you won’t see the sizzle of a more recent film, but it does look good. I never thought the colors (or anything else about the film actually) really popped, but I’ve seen worse translations to Blu-ray. Coupled with the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound, it’s a noticeably better presentation than a DVD.
As for extras, there are a few; nothing new or very interesting, however:
-Jean Claude Van Damme: Looking Back, Moving Forward (SD, 12m) – A brief interview and a collection of clips from some of Van Damme’s earlier works. Worth a watch.
-Michael Jai White: A Universal Soldiers Workout (SD, 4m) – Michael Jai White plays the human form of SETH in the film, the primary antagonist. More recently, he’s been kicking butt as Black Dynamite, but this feature is just a brief look at what Michael did to get in shape for his role in The Return.
-Making of (SD, 5m) – An original making of feature about the movie. Unsurprisingly, it plays out like one long promo, complete with some making of footage and interviews, along with clips of the film.
To the summary…