The Carrying On of A Wayward Son

Universal Soldier: The Return is an awe-inspiring brushstroke of genius. Comparable to the likes of Citizen Kane in its style and Lawrence of Arabia in its scope, US:TR transcends everyday paltry cinema to become something more — something breathtaking.

Once you witness the majesty contained within the film’s all-to-fleeting 82 minutes, all other movies will diminish when seen in US:TR’s grandiose shadow.

This is the reason why movies are made.

Nah… I’m just bullshitting you.

Universal Soldier: The Return is one bad movie. The good news, though, is that it’s a bad movie that, under the right state of inebriation, can be a joy to watch.

I can’t say I’m much of a scholar when it comes to the fabled Universal Soldier franchise. Being a male child in the ‘90s, I was, of course, aware of the films’ existence and possibly, maybe watched one or two of the made-for-television sequels to the original 1992 film.

I vaguely remembered Universal Soldier: The Return being released in 1999 — mostly due to the Megadeth song Crush ‘Em, from the US:TR soundtrack, that played non-stop on the rock radio station of my hometown in the summer of ’99.

When a mix-up occurred and I was sent Universal Soldier: The Return instead of Universal Soldier: Regeneration, the recently released fourth sequel in the series, I decided to just go with the flow and watch the Blu-ray copy of Universal Soldier: The Return.

What little I knew about the series turned out to be just enough to understand the plot of Universal Soldier: The Return, which apparently ignored the two made-for-TV sequels that had come before.

Jean-Cluade Van Damme returns as Luc Deveraux, a Vietnam solder who, after being killed in combat, was resurrected as a computer chip-enhanced killing machine.

In The Return, Luc has forsaken his heritage as a cyborg and is now just an ordinary G.I. Joe, lending his expertise to the U.S. Government and helping them train and evaluate the new generation of universal solders.

These solders are supervised by the watchful robotic eye of S.E.T.H., a computer program with dreams of world conquest. When S.E.T.H., voiced by Michael Jai White, overhears news that the universal solder program is about to be shut down, he resorts to that old robot trick and kills his human masters and recruits an army of Universal Solders to take over the world.

Well, as you might of guessed, it’s up to the Muscles from Brussels to put a stop to S.E.T.H. and the cyborg corpses. Unfortunately for JCVD, S.E.T.H. has implanted his programming into the body of a genetically modified super soldier (also played by Jai White).

Universal Soldier: The Return is the type of bad movie that revels in its awfulness.

Full of bad lines, even worse plot contrivances and enough male body builder posturing to make happy any gay man or fan of wrestling (but really, what’s the difference?).

But before you think this movie is nothing more then shirtless muscle-bound dudes punching each other, there’s also a brief bar fight in a strip club. So if you’ve ever wanted to see a topless, big-breasted perform a high kick into a man’s head — this is the movie for you.

I can’t, in any right mind, recommend Universal Soldier: The Revenge to anybody with a taste for good movies. I can, though, whole-heartedly recommend the film to anybody and everyone who loves bad movies.

Unfortunately, the film’s Blu-ray is nothing to crow about. I’ve seen Blu-ray transfers of 40-year-old movies that look better then this fuzzy re-master of the 1999 action movie. The disc does come with a few featurettes: a five-minute making-of, a four-minute spot on Michael Jai White’s training regime and a 12-minute retrospective of JCVD’s career.

I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in the last year and Universal Soldier: The Return was, without a doubt, one of the most fun.

It’s big and stupid in the kind of way that made me kind of see why pretty girls go for the dumb jocks in high school.

The film is ballsy in its awfulness — almost like it was trying to be the worst possible movie it could be.

Between JCVD’s drunken-slur-like delivery of lines (I know he has an accent but surely he doesn’t always sound like he’s just had a stroke) and Bill Goldberg’s cartoon-like role as Romeo, the Yosemite Sam of killer robot movies, US:TR is a lot of fun — in a bad way.

Robert Saucedo is the Yosemite Sam of bad movie fans. Follow him on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.