Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)

The "universal soldiers" must fight the whole army, when the military's supercomputer S.E.T.H gets out of control.

Director:

Mic Rodgers

Writers:

Richard Rothstein (characters), Christopher Leitch (characters)

Stars:

Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bill Goldberg, Heidi Schanz

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jean-Claude Van Damme	...	Luc
Michael Jai White	...	SETH
Heidi Schanz	...	Erin
Xander Berkeley	...	Dylan Cotner
Justin Lazard	...	Capt. Blackburn
Kiana Tom	...	Maggie
Daniel von Bargen	...	General Radford
James Black	...	Sergeant Morrow
Karis Paige Bryant	...	Hillary
Bill Goldberg	...	Romeo
Brent Anderson	...	2nd Technician
Brent Hinkley	...	Squid
Woody Watson	...	RL Gate Guard
Jacqueline Klein	...	Betty Wilson
Maria Arita	...	Kitty Anderson

Storyline

Luc Devereaux, the only surviving member of the original Universal Soldier Team. He now works with Dylan Cotner, on a project to create and improve a new Universal Soldier. Their plan is for the Universal soldier or UNISOLS to be controlled by a computer they call SETH. When the government decides to terminate the project, which includes shutting down SETH. SETH, not wanting this to happen, takes steps to prevent this. He first kills Dylan. He then has himself transfered into a body. He then seeks out Luc Devereaux, who is the only person who knows the code that will stop his program from being deleted. So he sends out all the UNISOLS to get him. Luc must try and stay away until SETH program is deleted. But SETH has targeted his daughter as possible leverage.

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Plot Keywords:

time bomb | movie flop | computer | combat | general | 

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Taglines:

Prepare to become obsolete

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Genres:

Action | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for nonstop strong violence, and for language and nudity

Did You Know?

Trivia

(At around one hour and six minutes) When Bill Goldberg's character Romeo tears his shirt off, and starts to fight with the security guards, he uses one of his signature wrestling moves, the spear.

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Goofs

When Luc and SETH looks at the termination code monitor, the Rejuvo-booth program monitor shows "Healing Complete". After Luc kicks SETH away, he runs back to the monitor and it shows "Incomplete"

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Quotes

[watching the news, Squid watches as a news crew is blown up]
Squid: [laughing] I'll bet that hurt!

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Alternate Versions

The norwegian video-version is rated 15 and is uncut.

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Connections

Follows Universal Soldier (1992)

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Soundtracks

Fueled
(Remix)
Written and Performed by Anthrax
Courtesy of NFP Music
Under license from Notman

User Reviews

Lots of kickboxing

Jean-Claude Van Damme has been in about a film a year for 15 years now, and has been the star performer in those films since 1985's No Retreat, No Surrender.

That's no mean achievement and shows that this action movie star has a market for his skills, as limited as they might be. The formula isn't Van Damme's alone but he's certainly the most prolific of the action movie stars.

Silvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Steven Segal, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan are the best known of the action stars but with the exception of Chan, Van Damme is the one who seems to be still most actively in the business. And these sorts of films are much less popular than they used to be.

Jean-Claude is a terrible actor and his film world is simplistic. One can only assume that his fans wish that the real world was like his.

The scenario almost invariably includes lots of hand to hand fighting, silly women and often children who need defending. The plots are stupid and concocted only to allow Jean-Claude to fight a lot and to show his sensitive side as he protects the women and/or children.

The mushy bits, accompanied by appropriate music, aren't ever romantic, Jean Claude could never manage that, but they serve to depict this action man as being a reluctant hero. He only beats people up, firstly because he can, but secondly because he has to.

His best film so far, of the ones I've seen, was the John Woo directed Hard Target (1993) which had many stylish touches, often in slow motion, which accentuated the admirable Van Damme gracefulness.

I think the worst was Double Impact which unfortunately doubled the torture - there were two characters in the film played by the Muscles From Brussels.

And the famous, universal, Van Damme bum shot, the scene where we get to see Jean-Claude's tastefully lit posterior, happens early on in Universal Soldier 2. So if you like you can leave early.

Universal Soldier follows the formula. Actually I think that his fans will like this one. There's plenty of kick boxing.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 August 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Universal Soldier IV

Filming Locations:

3458 Old Buena Vista Rd, Waxahachie, Texas, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$45,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,605,167, 22 August 1999

Gross USA:

$10,667,893

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$10,667,893

Company Credits

Production Co:

TriStar Pictures, Baumgarten-Prophet Entertainment, IndieProd Company Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1