Okay,
the first movie
was a fantastic, excellent piece of knockabout entertainment.
The sequel,
stunk to high heaven, so what is the hope for Universal Soldier: Regeneration? Three words: Dolph is back!.
In this movie, Russian terrorists are threatening the world by setting up base at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (is
that really wise??) and its surrounding area. They want their government to release all 227 political prisoners held
captive and the full independence of the fictional Pasalan. If they don't comply within 72 hours then bombs rigged to
go off will blow up Chernobyl* and cause a radiation problems 100 times bigger than Hiroshima. Oh, and they've also
kidnapped the Russian President's son and daughter so they'll go up in the mushroom cloud as well. (*Well, it's Sofia,
Bulgaria standing in for Chernobyl).
The only answer is to bring back these bad boys who can kick arse when it's required in a way that no human can. As
such, it pits Luc Deveraux (Jean Claude Van Damme, right with Dolph) up against a new UniSol baddie, NGU or 'Next-Generation UniSol'
(Andrei 'The Pit Bull' Arlovski, bottom-right)- who's on the side of the Russians, and there's a return for his old nemesis,
Sgt. Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundrgen), now in a souped-up form.
It's almost as if the sequel didn't exist (if only!) because Luc is brought back into action, when in the sequel he was
up and about anyway and was working with the US Military as their technical expert when it came to the Universal Soldier
program.
Aside from the main trio, there's Emily Joyce as Dr Sandra Flemming, who's been helping Luc get back to full
strength after his original adventure; Mike Pyle as Cpt Kevin Burke, sent in for recon and to assess the situation
with the Russians; plus UniSol boffins Dr. Porter (Garry Cooper) and Dr. Colin (Kerry Shale), who worked
together many years ago but now are on opposite sides of the law.
Interestingly, the film was directed by John Hyams, son of Peter Hyams, who directed Van Damme in
Sudden Death
and Timecop. However, it doesn't involve any surprises - not least the fact that it completely bypassed the cinema -
but does have a nice visual look to it, and it's that which just about saves this
movie from being a two-star stinker. Since, as well as the fact that both JCVD and Dolph are looking far too old for
this, the worst thing is that it takes nearly an hour before Dolph turns up and another few minutes before either he or
Van Damme actually see any action and a total of 20 before they actually meet! And even then it wasn't really worth
waiting for. What a missed opportunity!
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Blu-ray: 
Presented in the original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio, the picture is nicely detailed where it counts, but the
backdrop is mostly grey, depressing Russia, so it doesn't get a chance to shine too often.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
