The Direct to Video Connoisseur

I'm a huge fan of action, horror, sci-fi, and comedy, especially of the Direct to Video variety. In this blog I review some of my favorites and not so favorites, and encourage people to comment and add to the discussion. For announcements and updates, don't forget to Follow us on Twitter and Like our Facebook page. If you're the director, producer, distributor, etc. of a low-budget feature length film and you'd like to send me a copy to review, you can contact me at dtvconnoisseur[at]yahoo.com. I'd love to check out what you got. And check out my book, Chad in Accounting, over on Amazon.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998)

Photobucket

I'm not sure why, but these two Universal Soldier made for The Movie Channel sequels are some of the most requested at the DTVC. I'd always kind of just stuck them aside, figuring I'd get to them eventually. Unfortunately, Netflix decided they were going to put my feet to the fire by letting me know that they were taking both movies off of Watch Instantly, and I knew I'd never bother getting them any other way if I didn't see them on Watch Instantly, so here we are, finally making them happen, starting with part 2.

Universal Soldier 2 picks up where part 1 left off, with Matt Bataglia as Luc Devereaux and Chandra West as Veronica the reporter. Gary Busey, who runs the UniSol program, is taking it private, hoping to sell the soldiers to the highest bidder. He's able to get Bataglia back by some homing device, but when Chandra West goes in after him, she saves his brother, played by Jeff Wincott, instead. Now the two brothers have to take Busey down before the UniSol technology winds up in the wrong hands.

Photobucket

I guess this was like a couple of episodes for a proposed TV show mushed together, a case of someone trying to make lemonade out of some lemons. Unfortunately we all ended up with burning eyes from the citric acid squirted into them that was this movie. There is virtually no action until the end. Even if it's two episodes of a TV show, episode one would've sucked for that alone. There's only so much "Luc Devereaux trying to be human" we can endure before we need it broken up with something else. Then you have a totally wasted Jeff Wincott, a sick martial artist who spends most of the movie strapped to a chair. Then you have to buy Matt Bataglia as the hero, which maybe you can do with more action, but the way this went like a human interest piece-- let's just say the whole thing was sautéed in wrong sauce.

I've read somewhere that Van Damme joked about how all his movies spawned sequels that starred actors other than him. Bloodsport had Daniel Bernhardt, Kickboxer had Sasha Mitchell; but what makes these two TV sequels to Universal Soldier different is that Matt Bataglia plays the actual character Van Damme played in the original. Something about that had to have upset Van Damme, because he felt the need to right the wrongs of these movies by rebooting them the same year the second one came out. Also, Van Damme was losing his box office relevance, so maybe he thought he could recapture that by reclaiming one of his more notable characters. Either way, all three movies turned out bad, and it was probably good that Van Damme took ten years before he revisited it. It would've been cool though to see what, if done well, a Universal Soldier syndicated TV show would've looked like. Put it on the Action Pack with Hercules.

Photobucket

Gary Busey as the main baddie is pretty sweet, but we expect that going in. Are there better ways to get your Busey fix? No doubt. But how many times have we seen Busey's name on the marquee only to find it's a bait-and-switch? Exactly, so at least here we know he's holding it down. I also really liked Chandra West as Ally Walker's character from the first one. Had this been turned into a TV show, it would've been her more than anyone else that people would've tuned into on a weekly basis, because she anchored any scene she was in with her wit and assertiveness-- let's just say Matt Bataglia would've looked a lot worse without her guiding him through their scenes.

I can only imagine Jeff Wincott signed on for this hoping he'd have regular work on a TV show, because this wasn't a good look for him. That's too bad, considering his character covered some uncharted Universal Soldier territory-- a UniSol that hadn't had his memory wiped, and was just dropped into the modern world after having been frozen since the late 50s. Why they didn't explore that more is beyond me. That would've made for much more effective padding. Also, Wincott could carry that kind of thing better. How can you not see Wincott as a hard-nosed soldier from the 50s interacting with late-90s America? Apparently the people who made it couldn't see that.

Photobucket

Finally, I want to talk about something that really irked me. (And no, I'm not talking about that tiny dude they tried to throw on us as Dolph Lundgren.) Near the end, West and Battaglia need to get their hands on transportation, so they steal the camper from a honeymooning couple while they're at a rest stop. Of course, the thing gets shot up and destroyed. What a shitty thing to do. Those are our heroes? Ruining a couple's honeymoon? Who writes crap like that? The bad guys are supposed to steal a honeymooning couple's camper, not the good guys.

I could go on, but I better wrap this up here. This is a painfest, mostly because nothing happens. We see too much of Battaglia riding on a train or Wincott strapped to a chair than we do good solid action. And as a story, this didn't cut it to be able to manage that long with nothing happening. Maybe I should've held out longer on these.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0186654/

11 comments:

  1. Yeah I've been holding of on watching these TV sequels as I just knew they'd be painful. Looks like they stay in the racks for a bit longer then.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I enjoyed The Return, but these made for TV sequels don't sound particularly great, at the very least, you have to give Return credit for not skimping on the action.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Universal Soldier 1-A great B.movie classic. (Not a classic, but B.grade classic)

    Universal Soldier II- Awful and boring crap about a premise that just goes on forever and minus the budget to do it right, the action blows. Gary Busey wasted.

    Universal Soldier III- Burt Reynolds is sort of funny as the bad guy, tries to play with more idea but almost as terrible as the sequel.

    Universal Soldier The Return-Atrocious but a slight improvement on two and three, Michael Jai White was decent, Van Damme was trying to elevate the material...but failed. Kiana Tom was really hot.

    Universal Soldier Regeneration-Not perfect by any means, needed more Dolph Lundgren, but good action and a really cool bodycount finale. Would've probably worked better as a stand alone project, but still decent.


    Universal Soldier: New Dimension- Looking forward to it, as it combines the talents of Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Scott Adkins and Andrei Arlovski. In fact it's too bad they couldn't get Jeff Wincott, Gary Busey and Burt Reynolds aboard.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Keep 'em in the bin Explosive Action, you're better off.

    I'm pretty much in agreement with you Kenner on all your points, and I too am hoping the new one lives up to expectations. It needs to rectify the lack of Dolph and Van Damme from the previous one.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great write-up. Heard this was pretty awful, even though it has Busey and Reynolds.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Somehow I've watched 2 & 3 twice?!? Yeah, they're pretty crummy, TV quality sequels. The best I can say about them is at least they followed directly on from the original rather than just ignored it like The Return did.

    Didn't I read they were thinking about trying to make a new TV series next year about Universal Soldier?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great review! I'm writing a review for this right now. And I agree with everything you wrote here. Just awful flicks. I did think III was slightly more watchable, since the music wasn't as annoying. What was up with the soundtrack???

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yeah Ty, these are pretty rough, plus there isn't much Burt Reynolds to speak of. That would be pretty cool Jack if they finally did decide to make a TV show, though syndicated TV doesn't really exist here in the States like it used to, so I don't know how it would work.

    Wow, yeah, the music was all over the place. I totally forgot to mention the MTV music video editing style this employed, which would've been cool if there had been some action. The worst was the symphony music they used in the big explosions scene. It was as if they were making fun of their only big action. Sauteed in wrong sauce.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for the warning! Based on this, I will probably never watch these when there are actually good flicks to check out instead.

    I used to love that action pack! Hercules and Rising Sun were my favorites. Too bad the concept didn't last though. I thought it was a great idea. I caught them every week when they originally aired.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I liked that Knight Rider one too, but the Action pack Hercules were great with Tawny Kitaen as his wife.

    ReplyDelete
  11. i can remember watching these films as a child and at that age you dont really care about production value. the story is good maybe not the best looking or as big as the first with JCVD film but if you liked the story in the first you might like the story in the 2nd and 3rd but i will say that the story in the 4th conflicts with the story in the 3rd at the end of the 3rd burt reynolds makes the claim that the unisol program was a good thing because it stoped living soldiers sacrificing their lives and hurting families pretty much trying to make himself like the good guy and was made out as a bad guy from everyone else but in the 4th jcvd makes the same statement even though he made burt out to be a baddie so dont know whats going on there. that said if you dont worry about prodution values i would give it a go honestly really good films

    ReplyDelete