by Brendan Foley
Two Cents
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Would you like to be free from pain? Then you should probably not murder Scott Adkins’ family. This seems like an easy enough proposition, but various jerks in various films have ignored this advice and inadvertently unleashed a tidal wave of ass-kicking, a trend that is expected to continue with Wolf Warriors, new on Blu on 9/1.
Adkins’ various direct-to-video killing sprees may have reached an absurd peak with Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning. Begun in 1992 with Roland Emmerich’s original Universal Soldier, the series has spawned theatrical sequels and TV movies, all before achieving unheard of heights of acclaim with the direct-to-video Universal Soldier: Regeneration. There aren’t many series that peak a couple decades after getting started, but that’s the trick that director John Hyams seemed to pull off.
Hyams returned for Day of Reckoning, bringing back his insane action chops alongside a story that melds sci-fi, horror, Enter the Void, The Bourne Identity, Apocalypse Now, and a whole host of others to produce a filthy, grime-soaked ride through psychedelic hell and back.
Was it a ride worth taking? Read on, and you’ll see whether or not the team enjoyed the latest incarnation of Universal Soldier, or if the series needs to go back on ice.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
If we are being completely honest, we are not sure what Executioners of Shaolin is about. But, it is called Executioners of Shaolin and features the character Pai Mei (remember him from Kill Bill?), so… hell to the yes, we will watch that. The film is streaming on Netflix Instant so please join us next week as we find out if any film can possibly live up to the sheer badassery of that title.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
Our Guest
Shawn:Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning deserves credit for ripping off Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”; if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best, and stealing from Conrad takes a lot of audacity. Now of course, this is not Apocalypse Now, it’s a Universal Soldier movie. What are you expecting? Surely not Coppola.
This is a departure from the previous entries. It actually tries to tell a story, something that it unfortunately fails at from time to time, but at least it tries. It comes across murky and confusing at times, but it dares to be different.
Scott Adkins appears to be taking over the franchise with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren reduced to glorified cameos as the villains. Making Van Damme a villain is an inspired idea unto itself, catching us off guard. This is just part of the new darker approach to the series, which I full-heartedly welcome.
The movie is full of brutal fights and exciting well paced action. Adkins makes for an amiable hero, and is at least as good as Jason Statham. He deserves a really good star vehicle, but this regrettably isn’t it. (@ShawnGordon15)
The Team
Frank:As someone who grew up in the era of Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, I believe that action movies in the ’90s rarely got any better than Universal Soldier. With its dynamic action sequences and horrific plotline, the original film was a revolutionary classic. An unexpected franchise followed with a collection of installments under the Universal Soldier banner which have truthfully been hit and miss.
However, so much of this last sequel works pretty well. Van Damme and Lundgren easily slip back into their roles and Scott Adkins is an interesting enough lead to carry as much as he does of the film. The action in Day of Reckoning is as intense as can possibly be and the final fight scene has been choreographed to the max.
If there’s any criticism with Day of Reckoning, it’s the dual plot. It’s not that either one isn’t captivating or given the short end of the stick, but both have enough room for their stories to go, you kind of wish that each one was its own movie. For my money, there’s nothing better than witnessing Deveraux taking control and seeking revenge against the organization that turned him into a monster. (@frankfilmgeek)
Ed:When pressing play on a DTV action film, one doesn’t expect to encounter a dense, Apocalypse Now-inspired, body horror-laden psychological mystery, which is why one could be forgiven for being thrown off by Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning. Director John Hyams had taken the reins of this franchise in the previous film and had created a Children Of Men-inspired action epic that varied wildly from the tone of the original film, but also surpassed it in quality. And because Regeneration had been such a gritty reboot, I too was thrown off by DoR, which seems to reboot all over again. And as a Scott Adkins fan, I was thrilled to see what I expected I was going to see in this latest iteration. Day Of Reckoning is not what anyone “expected,” and its weirdness will keep me coming back for a long time. Hyams is turning the DTV world into his own auteur playground, delivering the goods when it comes to fantastic action, but taking inspiration from cinema greats and using this often shunned sector of filmdom to craft art films with action heroes. I hope he takes this franchise further into the heart of darkness. (@Ed_Travis)
James:Well, Universal Soldier has come a long way since Dolph Lundgren got minced in a threshing machine and JCVD kept exposing his glistening buttocks. Unlike the rather decent reboot Regeneration, Day of Reckoning sees director John Hyams going all Apocalypse Now on the ‘Blimey! It’s still going?’ franchise.
Unsuccessfully attempting to delve into the psychology behind a lifetime of war leads us to a strange, maudlin action flick that sees a once again resurrected and still clearly insane Lundgren recruiting UniSols to establish one of those New World Orders, an unhinged JCVD as head of his own church making himself up to look like a Belgian Baron Samedi, and Scott Adkins exercising his frowning muscles (again) as the bereaved protagonist seeking answers and vengeance against the murderers of his wife and kid.
OK, some of the fight scenes are fairly decent, although they’re more plodding than your usual HK output, and seem to demonstrate everyone’s acrobatic ability rather than serve some kind of narrative purpose — the Steadicam set-piece towards the end is quite cleverly done — but from a dramatic and aesthetic standpoint, Day of Reckoning has all the brains and sophistication of a video game — only duller. (@jconthagrid)
Brendan:The Universal Soldier series has, like all Jean Claude Van Damme movies, been something of a blank space in my movie history. I know the premise, know that some people like them, but that was about it. Maybe being a non-fan made me appreciate Day of Reckoning more, but I thought this was just fucking awesome. Shot and cut more like a paranoid horror film that occasionally explodes into heart-stopping action, Day of Reckoning contains some of the most colorful brutality since Punisher: War Zone.
The excessiveness of the violence might be a bit much in places, but I was cackling at the sheer severity and relentlessness of the film’s set pieces. Limbs and extremities are hacked off, heads explode into stringy meat, and Scott Adkins defies all gravity to deliver inhuman beatings to the people who killed his family. Grounding it all is John Hyams’s David-Lynch-on-steroids aesthetic, which binds all the sci-fi malarkey and tangled plotting into a powerful dream noir atmosphere. I can honestly say I’ve never seen action movie like this, one that seems as interested in confounding reality as delivering thrills. It may not be entirely successful, but the huge ambition of Reckoning must be respected. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Austin:I’m having a really difficult time trying to come to grips with this film. It’s relentlessly vicious and ugly, and as an entry in the Universal Soldier franchise, it feels incredibly out of place. The cruelty and serious, somber tone are far divorced from what has come before, and JCVD and Lundgren’s characters are so unrecognizable and undeveloped that they feel like impostors in their own franchise.
Then again, while I’ve seen previous entry Regeneration, I don’t remember much of it at all, so maybe there’s a more natural progression and continuity to where the series has come than what I can recall.
Day Of Reckoning fares better for its stand-alone merits: a new protagonist in Scott Adkins, an identity mystery that mercilessly screws with the audience, and some cool action beats including a major fight sequence set in a sporting goods store. (@VforVashaw)
Justin:Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning isn’t a horrible movie, but it really didn’t do a ton for me either. As a qualifier, I’ve never seen any other Universal Soldier movies, so maybe that contributed to my inability to full grasp everything that was going on. Either way, I just couldn’t get fully into it.
I can say that it took me by surprise early on when it the opening was straight up horror. I went in expecting Sci-Fi action and was surprised to see a violent home invasion horror right off the bat. I’d go as far as to contend that the film as a whole was a horror film more than any other genre could define it.
Despite the violence and the darkness of the film, I found myself becoming disinterested about half way through and really don’t remember how it ended.
I give it a “meh” and a half.
(@thepaintedman)
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