Universal Soldier: The Return Review

by "Steve Rhodes" (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)
September 3rd, 1999
UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE RETURN
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE RETURN is about the power of recycling.
The villains are recycled dead soldiers called Unisols. The movie itself is a recycled version of the original as well as every action picture you've ever seen. Its idea of a talking, rogue computer who seizes control is, of course, recycled from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.
The video-game level plot can be summarized as: Fight. Shoot. Kill. The compassionless violence has humans being slaughtered three at a clip.
The star of the film's mindless violence is Jean-Claude Van Damme as Luc Deveraux, a haggard veteran who represents humanity's one chance when the Unisols go on a killing spree. Lead by the computer, S.E.T.H., these almost unstoppable fighting machines are ready to take over the world. Michael Jai White plays the human incarnation of S.E.T.H. (think HAL but with a buff black body). "The only way [to stop them] is to blow them up and hope the pieces don't keep fighting us," Deveraux explains.

The script by William Malone and John Fasano makes Deveraux a single dad so that his daughter is available for some cheap child endangerment scenes. It also cleverly sends Deveraux to a club that serves up topless dancers, phone sex and online pornography. The reason? He needs to get Internet access in order to hack into S.E.T.H. This lets them throw in lots of naked breasts so that the movie can have gratuitous nudity to go along with its gratuitous violence.

Heidi Schanz, trying her best to be Sandra Bullock, plays Erin, an aggressive television reporter accidentally caught in the heat of the battle. She follows Deveraux around so that she can get an exclusive, inside story. Trying as hard as she can ("What is it with you boys and your war toys?"), Erin never develops any genuine chemistry, positive or negative, with Deveraux.

As bad as it gets, which is pretty awful, at least you can say this for UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE RETURN: It isn't pretentious. Why it was released theatrically rather than going direct to late-night cable is its only mystery.

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