Project-Blu 'Universal Soldier: Regeneration' Blu-ray Review, By Nate Boss

Universal Soldier: Regeneration

By: Nate Boss, 2.4.2010

The Movie Itself:
An education for the readers of high def reviews. Not every reviewer wants to dirty their hands with films they feel beneath them. Put a steaming pile on a Blu-ray disc, and many reviewers will want to avoid it like the plague, as it means they'll have to watch it, or watch it again, having already beasted their way through some painful viewing. You can't skip ahead, or end it early. It's part of the job to finish the product that you started, and go over it with a fine toothed comb (in other words, you better be sober), to look for any failings in the presentation or film itself, let alone anything to praise. This isn't one of those cliche "it's a hard job, but somebody's gotta do it" situations, as it is possibly the most fun one could have sitting in front of a nice high tech home theater system.

To be honest, and the reason for above comments about "the life," I volunteered for Universal Soldier: Regeneration, expecting to have to sit through a laborious hour and a half, and then have to come up with some witty or (more likely than witty) harsh responses to it. Then, a funny thing happened. People who had seen the film started saying it was good. A direct-to-video sequel. A sequel over 10 years after the previous. Starring aging action stars. A fifth title in a series. Good?!?! No freaking way.

Funny thing is, the hype was right. If anything, it was understated. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to stand before you and make an announcement, an announcement I never could have imagined in my time reviewing films I'd ever make:

Universal Soldier: Regeneration may be the new king of direct-to-video ANYTHING.

Originally titled Universal Soldier: A New Beginning (an apt name for the series, considering the result), Regeneration restores the glory of old, only kicking it up a few notches, to the point that this DTV is the best in the series. Scary. The children of the Russian PM have been kidnapped in a bloody (piles of bodies), daring crash and grab, and are being held by a terrorist group in the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The terrorists want 227 political prisoners freed to prevent them from ending their lives, and countless others, if they are to detonate bombs wrapped around the other columns of the plant. The timeline? 72 hours. The twist? These terrorists have one hell of a next gen weapon on their side: an NGU (Next Generation UniSol). This super-duper-soldier (played by Andrei "The Pitbull" Arlovski) readily trumps natural, living armies, one on a hundred. He even trumps super-soldiers without breaking a sweat.

The only hope? GR44. Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme, aka JCVD). Sure, he's in psychological rehabilitation, trying to overcome his killer training, programming, and instinct. Sure, he's out of conditioning for the job. But he's the only chance left. An American soldier (Mike Pyle) is out to prove mankind can do it on their own, being one of the only survivors in the first wave to face off against the NGU. Can courage overcome technology and freak "genetics?" Can a first-gen UniSol take down the latest and greatest? Wait...let's not get ahead of ourselves, as a familiar face is going to complicate matters. His name? Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren). The stakes have been raised. The deck is stacked. JCVD would normally have to bluff his hand full of jokers and Uno cards against everyone else's full houses and flushes. Normally.

Why is today any different? You don't take a gun to a Jean-Claude Van Damme fight. You don't take a gun to a Jean-Claude Van Damme fight. You don't take a tank, an army, a bomber, an Apache, a harrier, or a predator to a Jean-Claude Van Damme fight. In other words: no matter what you bring to a JCVD fight, you're going to get your ass handed to you.

Wow. Wowwee. Wa-wa-we-wa. However you express surprise (the good kind), that's how I'm feeling.

The fifth in this series makes every single entry before it its bitch. This isn't the way things are supposed to be. Sequels are supposed to get worse as they go, and drop dramatically when they don't even hit theaters. Talk about bucking convention!

Directed by John Hyams (yes, the son of Peter, who directed JCVD in Timecop and Sudden Death, as well as 2010: The Year We Make Contact), and written by first time writer Victor Ostrovsky, Regeneration is the right film, at the right time, with all the right ingredients. The casting is pitch perfect, and believable in the roles. There is no awful re-casting of familiar, "iconic" roles. The pacing is perfect (though the second act is lacking, considering the bombastic first and third bows).

Regeneration is the first film with JCVD since JCVD. He doesn't show off serious dramatic chops again, as he is hardly the focus of the film. The interesting thing about Regeneration is there is no main character. NGU, the American soldier in search for redemption, and Deveraux all share leading roles, while Scott is more a cameo, but a damn, damn effective one. There is no one character to root for, or against. There is no clear path on what is going to happen. It's just intriguing.

The only way to end this review, and the best way to try to convince viewers this is a film worth blind buying is simple. The action. I had a smile ear to ear, yelling at the screen (in the good way), hooting and hollering as I watched some seriously nasty bumps. Gunfire everywhere. Knife fighting of the nastiest assortment. Superhuman zombie soldier on superhuman zombie soldier violence that knows no boundaries or limits. Fierce MMA takedowns and holds (yes, they fit into the story). Blood galore. No bullshit politics. No sappy romances or bullshit emotional arcs. Action. Sheer. Fucking. Action.
Rating:

The Presentation:
Universal Soldier: Regeneration arrives on Blu-ray with an AVC MPEG-4 encode at 1080p in the 2.35:1 ratio. The results? Not bad, not bad at all. Just not great.

Colors are washed out throughout, which makes their lack of vibrancy seem somewhat intentional. It makes sense. Gritty film, gritty colors. Grain? Not so gritty, barely noticeable, even. Skin tones are mostly natural, though occasionally pretty flush, in keeping with the undersaturated tones. Edge work is superb, while DNR and banding are nowhere to be found. Clarity? There's a few smudges here and there, but close ups are utterly gorgeous, and detail in the aging faces of Van Damme and Lundgren are great. The huge lump on JCVD's head looks like a forehead goiter, and the transfer makes it pop. Blood spit flying from mouths after impacts are awesome as sin.

Not all is well, though. The picture is utterly, pathetically flat, lacking any three dimensional burst, while action sequences suffer from some light blurring any time the film gets hectic. Delineation is barely average, while there is some artifacting to be found. This is still a nice transfer, hardly worth going insane over.

The audio? Get ready to go coo-coo bananas, as you may be in for the ride of your life.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track for Universal Soldier: Regeneration is, in exactly one word, possiblythegreatestsoundingadirecttovideofilmhaseversounded. It's so good I had to make up that word. In. Sane. Unbelievable. This has to be repeated: the film is direct-to-video. It had a $14 million dollar budget. That's about half the amount any studio has to pay Sandra Bullock to not suck, and it covered the entire damn film.

The greatest sounding direct to video film ever made sports fantastic dialogue clarity and distinction, superb dynamics, massive LFE, infinite range, motion all over the place, localized sounds a plenty in action sequences, directionality that is spot on, and a synth score that has more bump than an earthquake. The bass is utterly insane. My favorite portion of the audio had to be the gunfire. It's FUCKING AMAZING, so good I had to capitalize those two words. There's a deep bass resonance with each pop of an automatic weapon, with lighter handguns having soft cracks. Automatic handguns? RAT-TAT-FUGGEN-TAT. Bullets fly everywhere, and more often than not, go from the front channels TOWARDS you, putting you right in the action. The only drag to the audio is the sometimes extended lulls the film has, away from explodey, gunfirey goodness.

If the film recommendation wasn't enough to convince you to give this one a shot, the audio should clinch it. If you have a lossless capable system, you're going to piss your neighbors off, but have the time of your life.
Rating: 8/10 (video score: 7.4/10, audio score: 9.3/10)

The Extras:
Audio Commentary with John Hyams and Dolph Lundgren

Behind the Lines

Previews: Black Dynamite, The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, Armored, The Damned United, Zombieland, The Stepfather, Universal Soldier: The Return, Breaking Bad Season 2, Snatch

MovieIQ
Rating: 3/10

Overall:
Here in the armpit of California known as Bakersfield, our local community college had one hell of an awful radio jingle to convince high schoolers to hit the books rather than the drugs or Jack in the Boxes. With a slight rewording, it works here. The time is now, the film is here, you'll get everything you want, so sit back with a beer. J-C-V-D, Jean-Claude Van Damme. He kicks serious ass here!
Rating: 7/10