In the 1992 international hit "Universal Soldier", the U.S. Army experiments with "regenerating" dead warriors, turning them into more efficient killing machines with predictably dire results. Co-starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, "US1" is of course noteworthy for helping launch the career of another duo.
While the creative minds behind that film -- Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin -- went on to much bigger things, Van Damme sans Lundgren is reduced seven years later to slumming through a dreadful sequel -- "Universal Soldier: The Return" -- that will not break the action-film veteran's streak of boxoffice duds.
What some might call a perfect drive-in movie -- it's so plotless and preoccupied with video game-style violence that it can be expendable or essential on a double bill, depending on one's mood -- "The Return" was not unspooled for critics in advance, and the crowd was tiny at its first screening Friday at the Cineplex Odeon in Santa Monica.
Somewhere deep in the heart of Dallas is a secret lab where the Unisols are made. Revived soldiers with special computer implants and other enhancements, the Unisols are basically inhuman, but nobody seems to mind, even Van Damme's reformed cyborg Luc Deveraux. A "technical expert" who hangs around the lab, Luc is security-conscious but caught off guard like his comrades by two unlucky occurrences.
The Army decides to pull the plug on the project and the intelligent computer program that controls the small army of Unisols pulls a HAL. Called SETH, it decides to kill all the pesky humans. But in this most serviceable of scripts, SETH has an Achilles' heel or two. Van Damme's aw-shucks hero has to get into and out of labs and hospitals, fighting many times with Unisol heavy Romeo (pro wrestler Bill Goldberg) and eventually facing the super-smart, super-buff Michael Jai White.
There's even a little T&A in a strip-joint scene to complement the full load of fights and mostly uninspired sequences of percussive destruction that further assault one's senses with abrasive rock music and overall chaotic mise en scene that gets worse as the movie progresses. But with no lasting subtlety or wit, the film blatantly, tiresomely exploits the bloodthirsty expectations of the target audience.
UNIVERSAL SOLDIER:
THE RETURN
Sony Pictures Entertainment
TriStar Pictures presents
a Baumgarten Prophet Entertainment/
Indieprod Company/Long Road production
Director: Mic Rodgers
Producers: Craig Baumgarten, Allen Shapiro, Jean-Claude Van Damme
Screenwriters: William Malone, John Fasano
Executive producers: Michael Rachmil, Daniel Melnick
Director of photography: Michael A. Benson
Production designer: David Chapman
Editor: Peck Prior
Costume designer: Jennifer L. Bryan
Music: Don Davis
Casting: Rachel Abroms, Jory Weitz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Luc Deveraux: Jean-Claude Van Damme
Seth: Michael Jai White
Erin: Heidi Schanz
Maggie: Kiana Tom
General Radford: Daniel Von Bargen
Romeo: Bill Goldberg
Dylan Cotner: Xander Berkeley
Capt. Blackburn: Justin Lazard
Running time -- 83 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
While the creative minds behind that film -- Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin -- went on to much bigger things, Van Damme sans Lundgren is reduced seven years later to slumming through a dreadful sequel -- "Universal Soldier: The Return" -- that will not break the action-film veteran's streak of boxoffice duds.
What some might call a perfect drive-in movie -- it's so plotless and preoccupied with video game-style violence that it can be expendable or essential on a double bill, depending on one's mood -- "The Return" was not unspooled for critics in advance, and the crowd was tiny at its first screening Friday at the Cineplex Odeon in Santa Monica.
Somewhere deep in the heart of Dallas is a secret lab where the Unisols are made. Revived soldiers with special computer implants and other enhancements, the Unisols are basically inhuman, but nobody seems to mind, even Van Damme's reformed cyborg Luc Deveraux. A "technical expert" who hangs around the lab, Luc is security-conscious but caught off guard like his comrades by two unlucky occurrences.
The Army decides to pull the plug on the project and the intelligent computer program that controls the small army of Unisols pulls a HAL. Called SETH, it decides to kill all the pesky humans. But in this most serviceable of scripts, SETH has an Achilles' heel or two. Van Damme's aw-shucks hero has to get into and out of labs and hospitals, fighting many times with Unisol heavy Romeo (pro wrestler Bill Goldberg) and eventually facing the super-smart, super-buff Michael Jai White.
There's even a little T&A in a strip-joint scene to complement the full load of fights and mostly uninspired sequences of percussive destruction that further assault one's senses with abrasive rock music and overall chaotic mise en scene that gets worse as the movie progresses. But with no lasting subtlety or wit, the film blatantly, tiresomely exploits the bloodthirsty expectations of the target audience.
UNIVERSAL SOLDIER:
THE RETURN
Sony Pictures Entertainment
TriStar Pictures presents
a Baumgarten Prophet Entertainment/
Indieprod Company/Long Road production
Director: Mic Rodgers
Producers: Craig Baumgarten, Allen Shapiro, Jean-Claude Van Damme
Screenwriters: William Malone, John Fasano
Executive producers: Michael Rachmil, Daniel Melnick
Director of photography: Michael A. Benson
Production designer: David Chapman
Editor: Peck Prior
Costume designer: Jennifer L. Bryan
Music: Don Davis
Casting: Rachel Abroms, Jory Weitz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Luc Deveraux: Jean-Claude Van Damme
Seth: Michael Jai White
Erin: Heidi Schanz
Maggie: Kiana Tom
General Radford: Daniel Von Bargen
Romeo: Bill Goldberg
Dylan Cotner: Xander Berkeley
Capt. Blackburn: Justin Lazard
Running time -- 83 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 8/23/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Put a stake in this genre already. The vampire movie gets yet another reworking in New Line's excessively gory and unpleasant "Blade" starring Wesley Snipes as a half-breed immortal with big guns and muscles who is determined to rid the world of the enterprising bloodsuckers.
Based on characters from Marvel comic books, "Blade" may slash its way to a respectable opening weekend at the boxoffice, but there's nothing noteworthy about this cinematic killfest. Crossover appeal is unlikely, from both sides of the tracks -- mainstream audiences will stay away and vamp fans of all colors will be wary.
And they should be. Credited to screenwriter David S. Goyer, the scenario is packed with new angles on the pointy-toothed-ones -- from serums to sunblock -- but at its center is a big void. Snipes grimaces a lot as his one-note character goes through hell. He's joined by the viewer having to suffer through an overwrought slaughter that drags on for an ungodly two hours.
The film begins with a literal bloodbath as partygoers in a rave club housed in an abattoir are sprinkled with blood in preparation for a communal massacre. Bursting in to ruin the ferocious gang's fun is Blade (Snipes), an avenging ally of us normal folk, although his mother died of a bite in the neck as she gave birth to him.
Half-man/half-monster, Blade the "daywalker" can leap off tall buildings and has other supernatural attributes, but thanks to a daily dietary supplement he doesn't crave the red stuff. His ally is fatherly Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), a normal human whose family was killed by the creeps.
When a burned-to-a-crisp corpse comes to life in a hospital and attacks nurse Karen (N'Bushe Wright), Blade's usual hard-line approach softens and he whisks her away to safety. Although Whistler suspects it's too late to stop her changing, the pair keep her around and she eventually joins the struggle.
Meanwhile, upstart neck-muncher Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) is shaking up the centuries-old vamp society with his group guzzling parties like the opening sequence. When aristocratic Dragonetti (Udo Kier) -- how exactly can one be born a vampire? -- opposes his power play, Frost rises to the occasion and dispatches the older gent with a trip to the seashore at dawn.
The evil ones are everywhere, according to this movie, with many human allies that have convenient tattoos. Frost's master plan is to harvest some of Blade's precious juices to awaken the "Blood God" and exterminate the human race. In a temple erected ages ago for just such a purpose, the final showdown takes place, but one has no interest in the outcome.
Other nasty highlights include a 1,000-pound androgynous vamp archivist who is fried with garlic sauce and the climactic confrontation between Blade and his mother, who lived on as an undead one. The violence is constant and repulsive, from such relatively tame examples as Blade's hand-shredding trick sword hilt to Whistler's brutal demise.
Production-wise the film lives up to this gem in the press notes from set wrangler Kirk M. Petruccelli: "Red is an extremely important color in the film." Sticking their necks out with gruesome success are special effects makeup artist Greg Cannom and visual effects supervisor Chuck Comisky. Needless to say, the concepts of subtlety and restraint are not familiar to sophomore director Stephen Norrington.
BLADE
New Line Cinema
An Amen Ra Films production
In association with Imaginary Forces
Director: Stephen Norrington
Screenwriter: David S. Goyer
Producers: Peter Frankfurt, Wesley Snipes, Robert Engelman
Executive producers: Stan Lee, Avi Arad, Joseph Calamari, Lynn Harris
Director of photography: Theo Van de Sande
Production designer: Kirk M. Petruccelli
Editor: Paul Rubell
Costume designer: Sanja Milkovic Hays
Special effects makeup artist: Greg Cannom
Visual effects supervisor: Chuck Comisky
Music: Mark Isham
Casting: Rachel Abroms, Jory Weitz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Blade: Wesley Snipes
Deacon Frost: Stephen Dorff
Whistler: Kris Kristofferson
Karen: N'Bushe Wright
Quinn: Donal Logue
Dragonetti: Udo Kier
Running time -- 120 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Based on characters from Marvel comic books, "Blade" may slash its way to a respectable opening weekend at the boxoffice, but there's nothing noteworthy about this cinematic killfest. Crossover appeal is unlikely, from both sides of the tracks -- mainstream audiences will stay away and vamp fans of all colors will be wary.
And they should be. Credited to screenwriter David S. Goyer, the scenario is packed with new angles on the pointy-toothed-ones -- from serums to sunblock -- but at its center is a big void. Snipes grimaces a lot as his one-note character goes through hell. He's joined by the viewer having to suffer through an overwrought slaughter that drags on for an ungodly two hours.
The film begins with a literal bloodbath as partygoers in a rave club housed in an abattoir are sprinkled with blood in preparation for a communal massacre. Bursting in to ruin the ferocious gang's fun is Blade (Snipes), an avenging ally of us normal folk, although his mother died of a bite in the neck as she gave birth to him.
Half-man/half-monster, Blade the "daywalker" can leap off tall buildings and has other supernatural attributes, but thanks to a daily dietary supplement he doesn't crave the red stuff. His ally is fatherly Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), a normal human whose family was killed by the creeps.
When a burned-to-a-crisp corpse comes to life in a hospital and attacks nurse Karen (N'Bushe Wright), Blade's usual hard-line approach softens and he whisks her away to safety. Although Whistler suspects it's too late to stop her changing, the pair keep her around and she eventually joins the struggle.
Meanwhile, upstart neck-muncher Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) is shaking up the centuries-old vamp society with his group guzzling parties like the opening sequence. When aristocratic Dragonetti (Udo Kier) -- how exactly can one be born a vampire? -- opposes his power play, Frost rises to the occasion and dispatches the older gent with a trip to the seashore at dawn.
The evil ones are everywhere, according to this movie, with many human allies that have convenient tattoos. Frost's master plan is to harvest some of Blade's precious juices to awaken the "Blood God" and exterminate the human race. In a temple erected ages ago for just such a purpose, the final showdown takes place, but one has no interest in the outcome.
Other nasty highlights include a 1,000-pound androgynous vamp archivist who is fried with garlic sauce and the climactic confrontation between Blade and his mother, who lived on as an undead one. The violence is constant and repulsive, from such relatively tame examples as Blade's hand-shredding trick sword hilt to Whistler's brutal demise.
Production-wise the film lives up to this gem in the press notes from set wrangler Kirk M. Petruccelli: "Red is an extremely important color in the film." Sticking their necks out with gruesome success are special effects makeup artist Greg Cannom and visual effects supervisor Chuck Comisky. Needless to say, the concepts of subtlety and restraint are not familiar to sophomore director Stephen Norrington.
BLADE
New Line Cinema
An Amen Ra Films production
In association with Imaginary Forces
Director: Stephen Norrington
Screenwriter: David S. Goyer
Producers: Peter Frankfurt, Wesley Snipes, Robert Engelman
Executive producers: Stan Lee, Avi Arad, Joseph Calamari, Lynn Harris
Director of photography: Theo Van de Sande
Production designer: Kirk M. Petruccelli
Editor: Paul Rubell
Costume designer: Sanja Milkovic Hays
Special effects makeup artist: Greg Cannom
Visual effects supervisor: Chuck Comisky
Music: Mark Isham
Casting: Rachel Abroms, Jory Weitz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Blade: Wesley Snipes
Deacon Frost: Stephen Dorff
Whistler: Kris Kristofferson
Karen: N'Bushe Wright
Quinn: Donal Logue
Dragonetti: Udo Kier
Running time -- 120 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 8/20/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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