Universal Soldier: Regeneration
That should probably have been that after The Return, and was expected to remain a franchise killer. Even two made-for-TV extensions of Unisol lore between the first and second, which were awful, only re-emphasised the fact that as a potential franchise there was little interest. Step forward a decade after the second one, Van Damme is well and truly homed in video land along with Lundgren. John Hyams, son of Peter Hyams (Timecop) is tasked with regenerating Luc Devereaux again and on half the budget of the first film and a quarter of the second. Not too much to contend with for your narrative debut then.
Regeneration, a film no one asked for, that even fans seemed half hearted at the prospect of, was shot with little interest or fanfare. It wasn’t until some early positive responses at festivals and sales markets that word spread the film was actually surprisingly solid. Despite having no clear protagonist (as though Van Damme is essentially the leading man, the budget and schedule meant he had limited shooting time… ditto Lundgren) it’s engaging. So Luc has spent years retraining himself to cope in society as a now defunct piece of government war property. A strict diet of meds and psychological evaluations but he’s still triggered to return to the instinct of battle. Then comes the inevitable situation where, with a terrorist holding the President’s children hostage in an old nuclear reactor guarded by a new grade of Unisol (played by UFC fighter Andrei Arlovski), Devereaux becomes the only possibility of successfully extracting them and disarming a bomb strapped to the reactor.
Gone is almost all the humour and goofy charm of the original, replaced with seriousness (not without some darkly macabre moments mind you). What is amazing though is how visionary it is despite being a Universal Soldier film, and despite some areas that the budget hampers (such as allowing for more of Van Damme). The film owes more to Blade Runner than RoboCop and Terminator with some philosophical musings and Van Damme gives an interesting performance. Despite the inherently goofy manor of Lundgren’s re-appearance (having been minced by a combine harvester in Universal Soldier) thanks to cloning, his role is Rutger Hauer-esque, and if that’s not praise, then I don’t know what is. He makes a comical, show-stopping villain from original genesis, to something more Frankenstein monster and imbued with tragic existential confusion. He’s rarely been better and similarly Van Damme, so there is this sense of wanting more from them, just in as much as screen-time, which the budget didn’t allow. A lot of JC fans seemed to really hate Luc’s arc and there’s an add rebellion against this film from the people who should probably like it the most.
Regeneration never forgets its action routes either. An opening car chase is legitimately one of the best of the last decade. Many of the action sequences, which include almost third person, video-game esque p.o.v and long takes, are all brilliantly put together, as are the fight sequences which essentially consist of huge supermen smashing the living shit out of each other. The pick of the bunch is Van Damme and Lundgren’s centerpiece finale showdown which is fantastic. Walls cave in, mise-en-scene is obliterated and the two super-soldiers batter themselves and their surroundings epically.