universal soldier 4 day of reckoning review

7/31/2019 Universal Soldier 4 Day of Reckoning Review

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Lets kick things off with a tiny bit about me and why like manywe love jcvds work. I have been interested and watching martialarts movies since the Karate Kid (1984), the Best Of The Best(1989). And then caught up with the whole franchise and many

other films from artists such as the late great Bruce Lee. Ive alsobeen, all due to the karate kid been either involved or been a fan(practising) of a few martial arts, But just like Bruce, I hate badlydubbed or badly done martial arts movies.

With this being said, ive also been a fan of how films/tv are donein general and understood the need for fake walls, wires, stuntdoubles, good plots, bad ones.

As JCVD will and has stated, his career has been very rocky and itwas down to him due to his activities in the mid-late 90s,because of this he was viewed as a joke, a parody if you must,similar to his arch nemeses Steven Seagal. Who he himself was amassive action star in the 90s.

The massive difference betweenthe two is that during the 00s ,Jcvd was coming out with straightto dvd films, but what was noticeable was the fact he was trying

different emotions and roles from Replicant (2001) awardnominated and came to a great achievement where his film

J.C.V.D (2008) was nominated 4 times for awards. Now stevenseagal had been nominated and even won awards 03 andprevious, but they were ALL razzes, ie you dont want to them onyour c.v . , and ever since then he hasnt been nominated for thebad or even good awards (likely because the guy doesnt deserveany good wards).

Now Im going to bring up Wake of Death (2004) which shows hisrecent years ability to improve his acting skills with differentemotions, but the reason Ive select this one is all down to the


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fact you cannot spot for a single second that he had a stuntdouble in this film, which quite frankly is what you aim for.So what happened with seagal? Well hes produced, written andeven directed most of his crap pile of straight to dvd films, and tobe honest hes still an idol for me based on martial arts, but ascreating quality movies, certainly not. Lets face it the guy hasliterally 1 expression and 1 role he plays in EVERY film hes in ordoes and it gets very boring. And then unlike JCVDs greatexample of not being able to detect his stunt double, seagals fanscould easily spot each and every stand in and stunt doubles inmost of the films hes done. And as a fan its depressing and israther off putting knowing a person who has very highqualifications in the arts hes been taught in and teaches, that hedoesnt do most of the fights his fans go to see.

So we come to the much anticipated next part in the universalfranchise, Universal Soldier:Day of Reckoning . Yep thats right,theres been another one. And if you hadforgotten or even noticed there was a previous instalment calledUniversal Soldier: Regeneration , Regeneration itself didnt breakthe $1million at the boxoffice and gained $7million during its

rentals (film cost around $14milion to make) this was directed byJohn Hyams, his dad Peter Hyams had worked with JCVD in someof his previously successful 90s films like 94s Timecop (budgetnear $30million, worldwide cinematic gross $101 million withrentals worldwide near $40million) and 95s Sudden Death(budget near $35million,worldwide cinematic gross $65 million) .

Now like myself,you may have gotten rather confused with the franchise, WHY?

Well it was taken over, as the rights were bought due to thecompany that did the very first Universal Solider ran out ofmoney.

So JCVD wasnt in the following 2 films called UniversalSoldier II: Brothers in Arms & Universal Soldier III UnfinishedBusiness which starred matt battaglia and both filmed andreleased in the same year of 98. Well surely these 2 inbetween films couldnt have been that bad, erm? Ill put it this

way, the actor is seemingly so ashamed of being the lead role letalone being part of the 2 films that on his personal websitetheres not a single mention of the films, and as another example,these two films are just like The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift


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(2006) where nearly every fan of the franchise has ignored thefact its even been made.

We then come to the rebirth of the real franchise when JCVDcame back onboard and was directed by Mic Rodgers making ithis directorial debut. Unlike many sequels especially ones that

have had previous films go straight to dvd the return made asuccessful come back and felt right at home with its blockbusterfeel, decent enough plot and great martial arts action. Its budgetwas around $14 million, by the end of 2000 it did a cinematicworldwide gross of $20million, and over $14 million in rentals justin the USA, so likely over $30 million worldwide by now.

the following 09 regeneration AKA new beginning wasnt great

by any stretch by many fans, it was rather a let down from whatmany fans were begging to see especially when Luc Deveraux(JCVD) arch nemeses Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) was BACK,fans were excited to see these two battle it out, imagining thescenes of havoc and chaos, remembering the literal bloody timesbetween the two back in 92.

However fans were met with a rather empty nonblockbuster atmosphere about the whole film, and the scenes

with both original unisols battling it out were rather limp wristed,and didnt amount to much. Dont get me wrong, the martial artshas always been fantastic and jcvds broader range in acting andexperimenting in his emotions were still great, just sadly thevision, direction wasnt what we had hoped for and it clearlyshowed in the severe lack lustier that was the empty seatsleading to around $800k box office.

We now come to the next instalment called Universal Soldier: Dayof Reckoning, The plot being the following: John (Scott Adkins)awakens from a coma to discover his wife and daughter wereslaughtered in a brutal home invasion. Haunted by images of theattack, he vows to kill the man responsible: Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme). While John tries to piece his reality backtogether, things get more complicated when he is pursued by arelentless UniSol named Magnus (Andrei Arlovski). Meanwhile,

Deveraux and surviving UniSol Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren)are preparing to battle anarchy and build a new order ruled byUnisols without government oversight.


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They are weeding outthe weak and constantly testing their strongest warriors in brutal,life-and-death combat. Luc has emerged operating the UnisolChurch of Eventualism, taking in wayward Unisols whom thegovernment has been secretly operating as remote-controlledsleeper agents. His mission is to liberate these Unisols from theimplanted memories and the lies the government has inserted inthem. As John gets closer to Deveraux and the rogue army ofgenetically enhanced warriors, he discovers more about himselfand begins to call into question everything he believed to be true.

Now , if you a fan of the franchise, specially JCVD instalments,then this instalment is sure as hell going to through you off by afew miles. Not only has Luc gone from kind hearted protector thathad turned into a human, hes now without ANY explanationturned into what can only be described as a cult Leader, psychoticemotionless soldier who has gained the trust and devotedattention from his minions (unisols or just renta a day soldiers,not really sure). How this has happened I guess we will never findout unless this is one of those films that just like the recent fastand furious franchise instalments we have prequels to sequels to

prequels confusing rubbish.

We then have Sgt. Andrew Scott (Dolph) who is seemingly Lucs2nd in command and the spiritual leader of a new order ofgovernment-manipulated soldiers who now are back in control oftheir minds and heading for world domination the voice to theminions and preaches the normal cult mind washing rubbish. Wecome across Andrew in what seems to be a no holds barred

brothel where ANYTHING goes and thats clear from the first fewthings you see.

Now I dont want to explain things to the extent that it actuallytakes away the last 10% of enjoyment that you may have getfrom this film, but what I will say is that if you are a fan or havewatched ALPHAS and the episode about being kept in jail via mindcontrol, you will understand how everyone is kept in this cult, but

also explains with whats happening in the first half of the film.With this being said I feel the need to warn viewers of a highlyannoying and possibly dangerous repetitive flashing of brightwhite light that fills the whole area and goes on for quite a bit


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during some scenes, thankfully I dont suffer from epilepsy but Ihave a feeling it may give some headaches.

This film is without doubt placed into the direction of being VERYdark, very adult orientated with a load of nudity, graphic shots tothe body, bones being broken and mind messing with Luc comingout of bathroom mirrors or appearing from nowhere (similar toCandyman (1992) however because of the mind control that John(scott adkins) is unaware of, instead of the 3 calls of the mythicaldemons name, Luc appears at any point trying to take control of

Johns thoughts.

During the initial part of the film, John is on his journey to gainrevenge but is constantly seeked by Magnus (Andrei Arlovski)after he is activated for duty during his normal daily life (justlike many action thrillers before it where agents get a call or pieceof paper with a code which activates them. and Now withoutagain spoiling what enjoyment you will get from these scenes Iwill state that much of the action is similar to John Hyamsprevious rubbish attempts, giving the atmosphere as I statedbefore a non-blockbuster feel.

So much so that (and this is the starting point as to why I startedthis review bringing up Steven seagals very badly done movies).

After John finds his female friend from a strip club , he comesacross Magnus who shows up as a toilet attendee, this is wherehe gets tagged and then JCVD appears again as a message,although seemingly like a horror flick the way this is being shown,the message he gives is in hopes a wakeup to John.

After spending time with his female friend, we start getting intosome fight action Due to an unexpected attack by Magnus, itsgritty, fully on but a severe lack of martial arts that many fansexpect.

Some time goes by, many scenes but this leads to a long vehiclechase sequence which ends with them getting each other through

a window.

Now as a fan of Adkins, I was wondering where all his skills wouldbe used as its barely seen as of yet, but as a unisol he suddenly


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figures his body is capable of incredible things and this is whenthe real fun in the film starts (for a martial arts and action fananyway), when this starts to happen, I start to forget about theconfusing plot, the bad driving and continuity errors and startenjoying the spot on fight chorography. And knowing AndreiArlovski UFC career your heart does start to pound knowingwhats about to happen and what is happening is simply brilliant.

The fact as to why every time Magnus is beaten he keeps comingback is baffling, because as Ive said not much is really explainedin the film. As if the plot is missing something, such as why thiswhy that,, why is Luc a moody bastard not saying much andbasically not doing much near half way into the film.

So we come to this shack as the female calls it and we arepresented with another level of confusion, however some may putthe tagged event and the item John comes across and startputting things together. However its these events that showsmore of the darker side to this franchise than before.

We then travel to a distant area to which I guess is where most go

to get themselves treated by the doctor and his sidekick isplayed by JCVDs son (Kristopher Van Varenberg) as Miles , thisdark thriller feel, shows in the both Miles and the doctors lack ofemotion towards John.However as the doctor continues to talk, the general plot to thefilm becomes more clearly as to what the hell is going on,however should it really have taken nearly of the total length offilm to get this far.

After a few moments,scenes turn ugly once again but this time resembles scenes fromSAW, so certainly not for the squeamish. Memories start flashingthat from Johns expressions during this event, he has never seenor experienced. We then see John just as before go into unisolmode and start to go mental and kick ass once again.

Now whilst the fight scenes are well thought out, the surrounding

set for the scenes has little to be desired as it mostly feels andcertainly looks fake as if it was a low budget movie, with the setdesigners on their first day out.


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So we are somewhat through the fight sequence and eitherunisols who were to be highly trained soldiers have becomerather slow and quite frankly unknowledgeable on how to use agun, either this or its part of the directors vision which wasntthought out, I mean with a straight through area where theunisols clearly sees John, has his firearm at the front of his chestand doesnt remotely aim at John even when hes less than 5ftaway? REALLY!

So after smashing through many unisols, you can see him walkingto find the next one, but as hes doing this you can now see howbadly the set is designed, or for their lack of attention, simplybecause the placement of a light, shows up a very badly coveredup fake hole in the wall which is obviously ready for something tohappen, which it does.

We then come to yet another fantastic martial arts close combatpiece of chorography between John and Sgt. Andrew Scott

We are then served with a decent fight between John and Luc,and still as we near the end Im still racking my brain as to why

Luc is like how he is, what his thoughts were to send these crypticmessages to John, yet at the same time Be the one that killedJohns family? Now whilst im having all these questions im missingsome of the fight, that or it really has occurred it doesnt matteranymore. the scene goes on and again leaves me a bit baffled toask what the director was thinking when John is showing all hisgrimacing to try push the blade into Luc, which normally meansthat person is pushing as hard as they can, yet when Luc lets go,

John is still there in the exact same position if Luc hadnt let go.Was this part of Luc that shows he now somehow has telepathicpowers that stop people from harming him?

it just feels a bit empty not onlybecause as a fan I can clearly see JCVD isnt doing some of thissequence, the other bit of me still baffled as to why this film tookthis route considering Regeneration saw Luc be the hero againand not only because this film actually has more holes and

continuity errors than some of the worst films done by seagal. Butsimply because as a viewer you not meant to be sent into yourown thoughts wonder what the hell is going on, Im watching but I


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dont feel im watching what I can only describe as completemovie done properly.

This leads me to scream and beg JCVD to not let John Hyamstouch anymore of this franchise, I beg John Hyams to step away,its clear as day as a fan, not only of the franchise but JCVDscareer and movies in general that you are not cut out fordelivering what used to be a major blockbuster franchise, you arenot cut out to deliver the clarity of script of have any decentdirection.

If anythingshows you are bad at this, if not for the other films u did before,maybe its just these ones, then maybe take a look at theworldwide box office gross over the films in this franchise that youhave sunk to the depths of hell (seriously I cant really express myanger more politely when the return did feel blockbuster andbrought in the millions and he wasnt anywhere near it)

The only remote saving graces of this film and the only reason Iwould buy the dvd, is the fact the acting was pretty good eventhough I must say Im rather disappointed how and why JCVD is

taking on this mad role, not only does it through the viewer off forthis film since it never was explained but in general I would thinkas a fan we prefer a combination of emotions. The martial artscombat sequences (apart from JCVD final one) which was odd,thats pretty much the only things good I can say about the film.

The sets were bad, plot was bad, and whoever was hired to checkfor errors, either needs to be taught how to do it or not broughtback to another film.

If there are any more to this franchise I dearly hope somebodyhas Mic Rodgers number as maybe he can bring it back from thedeath .

Review by Mathew Lisettwww.twitter.com/mathew30www.facebook.com/mathewlisett

Warning may contain spoilers

Continuity errors:
http://www.twitter.com/mathew30http://www.facebook.com/mathewlisetthttp://www.twitter.com/mathew30http://www.facebook.com/mathewlisett


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1. As both John and Magnus fight for the first time, John isattacked with an axe of which sees them struggle against thewall with the axed on each others hands. First shot just beforethey are against the wall the axe head is shown facing down,following shot show it facing up, following shot then shows itfacing down and the last shot of this sequence shows it up.

2. Same scene, a painting comes off from the right wall andfalls away from the frame and its backing board and relaxesagainst it, but then on an overhead shot, it shows the picturehas clearly moved about 2 ft laying on the floor with part of theframe wood on it

3. Just before Magnus slams into a normal car, he turns thesteering wheel left as well as his body. However on thefollowing shot the wheels are fully straight as well as himself.

4. As both vehicles drift around a corner, the vehicle Magnus isdriving has clearly got its backside further across than thefront, but on the next shot its the front that is further (just as ifhe hadnt lost control at all)

5. Same goes for Johns vehicle, his vehicle clearly shows thefront right tyre full lock towards the left whilst the back endwould be taking up Magnus s space, following shot sees his carand front wheel straight and then another following shot seesthe vehicle yet again seeing the vehicle drift around the sameexact corner but showing the back end (which would show the

first and 3rd shots were filmed at the same time and the 2ndfollowing shot having been re done for some reason.

6. Just after the turn, John slams into Magnuss vehicle andcauses his own back right window to smash, which is clearlyvisible on the follow through drive, however just as the tyre isblown and they go onto the next few shots, its clear that thesame window has now repaired itself, its also clear when the

vehicle crashes the window still has in tacked glass


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7. As Magnus aims the shotgun at the female passenger andfires the 2nd time, instead of the female getting shot the rightfront tyre gets shot out

8. Just as John and hi female friend are about to flip the vehicle,as it flips you can clearly see bursting to the left the blowcanister which aids the flip.

9. As they go for the flip shot, you can see the front bumper hassomehow repaired itself completely.

10.As John and Magnus are about to do battle, John is painfullyobvious about 3ft away from a shop window, has his foot on thepavement and 1 on the grass verge, yet as Magnus is only justmidriff lift and pushing him through so that the both would gothrough the window, its painfully obvious they are onlymaximum of 5 inches away as John has only just started to beattacked.

11.As they fall onto the floor with Magnus the attacker, Magnusbackside is facing away from the camera and towards the

counter and also laying on his side towards John, yet on thefollowing shot his back and legs and facing the left side of thecamera and hes fully ontop of John

12. On existing towards the window and out of the windowafter a fight, even though they had previously smashed througha pain of glass, the whole frame is totally clear of any glass, nosharp edges nothing.

13. During the start of a conversation between anotherdoctor, Miles and John, Miles is leaning forward asking whokilled them, the following shot shows Miles is bolt upright awayfrom Jon and is next to the doctor that created the tag

14.During the long fight sequence with the unisols in the cave

John comes up against a small unisol with a bandana next to along light on a wall, John deals with the unisol by fireing rightpoint blank to the guys head facing towards the wall and rightnext to the light. However when the shot is fire, all you get is a


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very small splatter of blood on the wall and seemingly an existwound to the left side of the unisol, yet NO bullet holes on thewall or light even though his head is mere inches away?

15.Onto the following stage of unisols, John roles to get to the2nd guy, this guy fires upwards for no reason at all whilst John isrolling upwards, On jons attack, John fires directly into theunisols stomach with its own rifle yet when the shots are fired,theres not a single exist wound from the back.

16.Near the end of the Sgt Andrew scott vs John its clear thatthe Sgts head is slightly down, yet on the follow up shot, theface is near upright with bloody dripping everywhere and aknife being shoved up his lower jaw into his mouth.

17.During the entire battle between Luc and John, for big fans ofJCVD you know how he walks, how his voice sounds when heyells and the fact his face crinkles. Well this is where you canthen see around 60% of this fight sequence is done by his stuntdouble/stand in. why god only knows.

18.Why since the whole film shows the unisols can bleed, bothLuc and John are bleeding with every single fully deep cut toeverybody part with the sword that cut into the body but whenthe cut is revealed the blood suddenly stops and the cut lookslike a badly done make up cut?

19.During the Luc and John fight the sword is seeminglytrapped on the wall of the cave, in one shot you can see theblade wobble slightly, on the following shot Luc takes the bladeaway from the wall and sparks flight from the wall. However thesparks dont happen until the blade is at least 5 inches away?

universal soldier 4 day of reckoning review

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