Universal Soldier : Regeneration (aka A New Beginning) Review

In the world of entertainment and movies, growing up is the 80s meant one thing. Growing up with action movies. From juggernauts like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, and your temperamental good cops like Willis and Seagal you get all sorts of memorable characters that you have grown to love and grasp it as part of your childhood (yea its usually rated R, but no one gives a sh*t and we turned out fine :)).

Oh hell yea!

The original "Universal Soldier" (UniSol) came out when I was 11 (Hint: Same year as the Barcelona Olympics). I remember watching the tape many times over (no internet back in the day, and my Micro Genius was locked up on weekdays), watching the then 'in his prime' Jean-Claude Van Damme go all out against 'Ivan Drago/He-Man/Punisher' Dolph Lundgren.

"Universal Soldier" was not the greatest of action films, but it did make a stamp in my brain (im sure most Gen X kids agree) and will probably always be there. Heck, two dead Vietnam vets (1 crazed and 1 righteous) get reanimated in the 1990s as supersoldiers? Ingenious!

Fast forward 18 years whilst forgetting the abomination that was "Universal Soldier: The Return" (and the other 2 lesser known TV sequels; the latest film ignores them as well) and you get "Universal Soldier: Regeneration", or A New Beginning as it's known on these shores.

What a crap poster.

Little advertising and marketing led me to only find out about this movie just over a couple of months ago, and when I saw the trailer for the first time, my chronological thoughts are as follows.."Damn this looks cheap as hell...Woah, Van Damme looks old....OMFG Dolph Lundgren is BACK!! And with UFC champ Andrei Arlovski!"

I write this after coming back from the cinema from watching this and I must say that this movie is extremely disappointing and has taken away the dignity of the two main characters from the original movie. I can't believe that Lundgren even actually signed up for this.

They don't look so bad here. Go watch the trailer. Gawd.

The story is crap. The colour scheme in the entire movie is crap. The UniSol's head gear look like used spraypainted webcams. Van Damme can hardly be seen doing any of his trademark moves. All he does is sulk. Lundgren is hardly given anything worthwhile to do. The actors are too damn old (a Rocky Balboa this is not!). I personally feel cheated and robbed of the JCVD/Lundgren rematch of the ages. I won't spoil more. A sequel to UniSol definitely has potential in this day and age, but the treatment for this was really off target. The first five minutes from the original movie is better than 1.5 hours of this crap.

As usual with B-grade flick, the ending suggests a sequel. I say leave JCVD out of it. But then again, who wants to watch a UniSol movie without him.