Russian rebels have kidnapped the children of their nation’s Premier and are holed up in the crumbling remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant; unless the Premier agrees to release a few hundred of their imprisoned comrades, the rebels will blow up one of the plant’s reactors, unleashing a radioactive cloud.

Assisting them is Dr. Colin (Kerry Shale), a disgraced American scientist who had been heading up the next phase of the Universal Soldier program; Colin, angry that the plug on his experiments has been pulled, has brought along one of his creations, a next-gen UniSol (played by Andrei “The Pitbull” Arlovski) so powerful he makes his forebears look like department store mannequins.

It takes a UniSol to fight a UniSol, so the military forces sent in to take down the rebels bring along Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a decommissioned first-gen who has been trying to escape his violent past reintegrate himself into society. As Deveraux attempts to complete his mission, he finds himself once again face to face with old nemesis Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren), who’s been kept on ice by Colin as a contingency plan.

CRITIQUE

Depending on how you’re counting, Universal Soldier: Regeneration is either the second, third, or fifth entry in this franchise. Two direct-to-video and one theatrical release followed in the wake of Roland Emmerich’s original 1992 flick, but even the faithful tend to ignore their existence. This movie apparently does, too. I suppose that’s something of a slimy move, seeing as how the producers expected fans to waste their time and money on something that ended up not mattering.

This latest entry does dismiss the events of the DTV offerings, and takes a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward 1999’s Universal Soldier: The Return (which is second only to Santa’s Slay as Bill Goldberg’s finest hour). Before now the only installment I’d seen was the original, which I found disappointing. It has some good action, but it takes itself far too seriously and is downright boring at times. Much the same could be said of Regeneration.

You know the influence of the Bourne trilogy has completely permeated the world of action movies when even a flick about a couple of superhuman popsicles turns out to be dreary and morose. Anyone going into this movie expecting a fun romp about a couple of monosyllabic juggernauts beating the crap out of each other is in for a surprise (and/or letdown).

The filmmakers have attempted to make the franchise relevant again (although it’s arguable whether or not it was ever relevant to begin with) by making it relentlessly dark and mean, draining what little fun there was completely away. Dark action movies can work; The Dark Knight proved that, as did--at least to a certain extent--Children on Men. But those movies were fueled by smart scripts and complex characters, whereas this movie is fueled by a plot that is nothing more than an excuse to stage fight scenes and characters who are about as complex as the puzzles on a placemat at Denny’s.

It’s too bad the script (credited to newbie Victor Ostrovsky) is such an underdeveloped, action-clothesline downer, because director John Hyams (son of Capricorn One, 2010, and Outland director Peter Hyams, who serves as cinematographer here) actually knows his way around action scenes.

The lack of plot, characterization, and logic quickly becomes wearying (no one seems the least bit worried about the lingering dangers from the Chernobyl disaster, and it’s never explained why an American-led force is sent in to solve a Russian-Ukrainian problem), but the movie’s opening kidnapping sequence is absolutely fantastic (so fantastic you just know it’s all going to be downhill from there), and the lengthy action finale is handled very well (although Hyams, who also co-edited the movie, should have trimmed it a bit, seeing as how the back-to-back slugfests--which are presented in the wrong order--eventually get boring). And while his inability to inject any sort of life into the scenes that serve as nothing more than breathers between the fights suggests he might not have the chops to really handle a feature, there’s no doubt in my mind Hyams would kill helming 2nd Units.

The acting is pretty much what you’d expect. Van Damme and Lundgren (whose role is so short it amounts to little more than a glorified cameo) are their usual bland selves, while Arlovski (who utters less than twenty words over the course of the entire movie, which is a good thing) looks like he could use an enema.

The supporting players all look indifferent, which sounds about right. Speaking of indifferent, it’s clear that the actors portraying the human soldiers weren’t given any sort of authenticity training before filming began; it’s amazing how accurate they are when shooting automatic weapons from the hip. And speaking of authenticity, the filmmakers didn’t even bother trying to make their abandoned Bulgarian steel mill location look like an abandoned Ukrainian nuclear power plant (which technically isn’t abandoned, but never mind); the rebels have their bombs planted on the inside of an extant reactor, but I’ll be buggered if I spotted anything that looked like the exterior of an extant reactor. But the movie is really nothing more than an attempt to cash in on a brand name and squeeze a few bucks out of a series that has run its course, so why carp?

THE VIDEO

Regeneration was shot with Red One digital cameras, and this disc’s 2.35:1/1080p transfer--encoded with VC-1 onto a 50GB disc--reveals its digital origins on a few occasions. Some of the very dark scenes have a harsh, artificial appearance, and blacks sometimes have a weak, somewhat grey look.

The gritty, subdued color palette (which is a complete about-face from anything the elder Hyams has previously shot) doesn’t afford much in the way or pop or saturation, but what’s presented here is a good representation of the intended look. Depth and detail are acceptable, although the latter is only truly impressive in extreme close-ups (although the level of clarity is high enough to make the aging stars’ stunt doubles that much easier to spot).

THE AUDIO

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track included here (which is the only available audio option) makes the movie sound more like a mega-budget blockbuster than a straight-to-disc offering. The sound design is relentlessly loud and raucous, putting every inch of the soundstage to excellent use. The constant mayhem and violence sound fantastic, reinforced by a low end that booms. What little dialogue there is comes through clearly (there are flaws in the delivery, but not the presentation). It’s not quite up to the level of a really great theatrical mix, but damn if it isn’t close. English and English SDH subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The commentary by John Hyams and Dolph Lundgren makes for a surprisingly good listen. Hyams does a nice job covering the pains of bringing in the movie on a tight budget and short schedule, while Lundgren comes across as affable and self-deprecating.

Behind the Lines (19 minutes, HD) is a surprisingly good making-of featurette, with much of the runtime given over to the stunts, fights, and action.

BD-Live connectivity will allow you the option of watching the movie with another of Sony’s patented movieIQ streams.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Universal Soldier: Regeneration is another example of a movie that’s better than most people expected it to be but is nevertheless not worth seeing. Unless you’re a diehard fan of the franchise, your time will be better spent elsewhere.