Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

Directed by John Hyams

Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme ("Luc Deveraux"), Dolph Lundgren ("Andrew Scott"), Andrei Arlovski ("NGU"), and Mike Pyle ("Captain Kevin Burke")

Rated R

REGENERATION is the third film in the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER series (excluding those two made-for-TV movies), but it was the fourth film, DAY OF RECKONING, that served as my first experience with not only the series but with director John Hyams, who really impressed me with what he brough to the table in terms of how he could shoot action scenes. While this movie, ultimately, didn't do much in the way of explaining the weirdness of DAY OF RECKONING, the opening minutes alone made me hungry for more Hyams. The man knows how to film violence. My God, what a fucking opening. It's like being dropped into a warzone.

The teenage children of Ukraine's Prime Minister are kidnapped by masked terrorists in a hale of gunfire. Turns out the terrorists want their people freed from prison, so they use both the Prime Minister's children and the threat of Nuclear warfare is leverage. In other words, there's not much room for negotiation. And this is where the titular Universal Soldiers come into play. The Universal Soldier program that was established in the previous films was apparently suspended years earlier when problems arose, but a bunch of lab geeks and military officials kept the program alive and preserved a small group of Soldiers. The Universal Soldiers here are portrayed in a way that sort of combines the Nazi idea of creating super-soldiers with the hardcore, militant training of Russian soldiers. In other words, there's a hint of ulterior motives and bad intentions.

Working for the terrorists, however, is their very own Universal Soldier - an advanced, rogue model (played by MMA fighter Andrei "The Pit Bull" Arlovski) who is basically the soldier to end all soldiers. The ultimate killing machine. The terrorists hole up at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, and, like a guard dog that has machine guns strapped to it, the "evil" Universal Soldier, NGU, singlehandedly guards the makeshift base and occasionally pops out of the shadows to murder large amounts of people without breaking a sweat. Returning are the original Universal Soldiers, Luc Devaraux and Andrew Scott. Luc is now part of what is basically a rehabilitation program, and Andrew is the Ace up the sleeve of the film's corrupt scientist. Without getting into details, all of their paths eventually cross at some point, leading to tons of choreographed fight scenes and action set-pieces. Violence, violence, violence.

One of the more interesting elements of the film is the character of Luc. He's being rehabilitated and essentially trained to be more of a human, but his killer instincts remain. He's like a dog that can turn on its owner at any moment. There are also some noteworthy parallels between actor Jean-Claude Van Damme and his character. There's an undeniable theme of "out with the old, in with the new" present in not only the content of the film but in the subtext as well, and Luc is representative of the "old" in the same way that Van Damme is considered an Action star of the past. They're both old and basically washed-up, but they still have the skills to pay the bills, and it's only a matter of being able to tap into it.

What director Hyams and the screenwriters of the film did with the whole Universal Soldier... uh, "universe" in REGENERATION is pretty interesting. They brilliantly took an established product and re-packaged it in a way that makes sense and gives it some teeth rather than re-hashing the same old shit. Not only is it clear from the casting of an MMA fighter in an important role, but from the choreography of the fights as well (submission moves galore), that there are fans of combat sports behind the scenes, and REGENERATION undeniably caters to that demographic, but there's a great balance here between the MMA mentality and just straightforward, old-school Action. It's a successful clashing of worlds, and the results are pretty fucking good.

Overall, REGENERATION is an incredibly satisfying Action film. Great character psychology, awesome fight choreography, a ridiculously high body count, an old-school Action movie mentality with modern-day resources, and many great action set-pieces as opposed to only like two or three big ones spread throughout the film. Of course most films need to take a break from the action and the violence in order to tell a story, which is understandable, but REGENERATION tells a story while people are getting their asses beaten or shot. Oh, and there's an amazing headsplosion too.

Make or Break: The opening set-piece.

MVT: John Hyams

Score: 7.5/10

Check out my review of UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING HERE

In Hell (2003)

For a brief (very brief) moment in time, I was wanted by the authorities on drug charges.  Okay, maybe that’s blowing it out of proportion just a bit.  Either way, here’s what happened.  I and some friends of mine went to Canada on a fishing trip.  I had then and have now no interest in fishing or in being out in a cabin, but I did have a big interest in being able to drink legally (I was younger then; thank God for the moral turpitude of our neighbors to the North) and visit certain types of bars (the sort where there are more women dancing than men, usually).  In order to maintain the façade of at least looking like a fisherman and in the unlikely event I wound up actually trying to catch a fish, I had borrowed my brother’s tackle box for the week.  

Anyway, as we were coming back across the border into New York, the good border agents must have sensed some perfidy going on, and they asked that I pull my car over to be searched.  No big deal.  Imagine me and my passengers’ surprise when the police separated us into three rooms and began grilling us about what “junk” we had been “partying” with all week long.  We pled ignorance (which was the truth).  After prolonging our anxiety to the maximum, the authorities let us know that they had found drug paraphernalia in my tackle box, and that was why we were just moments away from body cavity searches and being thrown in the pokey (but maybe not necessarily in that order).  It appears that there was a small syringe in the box for injecting worms with air to make them more visible and appetizing to animals with brains the size of a hair’s circumference (feels like the angling equivalent of anabolic steroids to me).  After much begging, pleading, and borderline bawling, we were released on our own recognizance, sans needle.  They don’t call me the Teflon Todd for nothing.  The coppers will never catch me.

Kyle (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is an “American” working a construction site in Russia.  One evening, his wife Grey (Marnie Alton) is attacked and murdered by Sergio (Michail Elenov) while Kyle is on the phone with her.  Kyle gives chase, and eventually Sergio is captured.  However, some (unseen) negligence on the part of the police allows Sergio to go free.  Sergio taunts Kyle, and unable to live with the injustice, Kyle snatches a guard’s pistol and shoots his wife’s slayer to death.  Kyle is subsequently shipped off to Kravavi Prison, where General Hruschov (Lloyd Battista) and subordinates like Tolik (Carlos Gòmez) run the place with an iron fist, even staging bare knuckle fights between inmates.  Resisting the pressure to give in, Kyle is placed in a cell with 451 (Lawrence Taylor), a silent giant known for murdering his various cellmates.  Will the “Muscles From Brussels” survive?

Ringo Lam’s In Hell is a Prison film which is a surprisingly mature work for its exploitative elements, and while it’s not The Shawshank Redemption, to be sure, it does deal with some of the same themes.  It just deals with them through bloody, gladiatorial fights rather than through the more subtle protestations of one man and his interior struggle against the systematic subjugation of the human spirit.  The central conceit of every film of this ilk (or at least the ones I’ve seen) is the death of hope.  Even in prison, Kyle starts off close to normal, but when he is stripped upon entering the jail, he hides a photo of Grey in his underwear.  He can give up his worldly possessions if he has to, but the things which link him to his one love (the photo and his wedding ring) are the things he resists conceding (he gets to keep one of the two).  They are the chain binding him to the outside the world, to hope, even though his sentence is life without parole.  There can be no legal exoneration for Kyle, since he actually committed the crime for which he was convicted.  His spiritual redemption must be achieved by holding on to hope and passing that hope on to others.

This sense of hope ties directly into the humanity which the institution endeavors to destroy.  There are regular fights in the prison yard, ostensibly for the various gangs to settle their disputes.  But their actual purpose is to give the wardens of Kravavi and some other jail to make wagers and to amuse them and their families.  Consequently, the prisoners must be treated as savages, brought down to the level of animals in order to fight blindly, believing that they do it for power and respect (which in some ways is true).  Yet, if this were in fact solely the case, it could be argued that there is some merit to the combat.  However, because the fights are staged for reasons other than the fights themselves, there is no honor to be gained, and it is humanity which is lost.  Most significantly, this thematic conversation is embodied across four characters.  Billy Cooper (Chris Moir) is young and unassuming.  He is violated physically and sexually on multiple occasions.  He cannot effectively fight back, but he refuses to give in mentally.  Conversely, Boo (Milos Milicevic) is the result of the institution claiming total victory.  He is a gargantuan monstrosity, both non-verbal and literally faceless.  He exists solely to please his masters through the bloodletting he delivers unto them.  451 is a completely institutionalized man, but he has maintained his humanity, because he has the physical ability to withstand corporeal attacks and he has the mental ability to recognize the prison for what it is and to build a fortress inside his journals to sustain his humanness.  Sure, he has to kill the occasional yardbird who violates his rules, but that’s because he understands what the violation of his personal laws will mean to his survival inside the walls.  

Kyle needs to learn from all three of these characters, to become a gestalt of them and save himself.  This requires both death and resurrection (figuratively, of course).  Kyle must descend into the “Hell” in the basement of the prison and below the toilets (there is a river of effluent flowing through the solitary cell in which he finds himself).  It is here that Kyle will try to commit suicide several times and fail.  It is here that he will develop his body into the tool it must become to dominate the fights.  It is here that he will form a simplistic, empathetic connection that will aid him later.  Kyle’s old self may be dead, but his new self is still not what it needs to be either, because he has forgotten what that which kept him human.  In order to overcome the prison and become a leader in a spiritual sense, it will be through self-sacrifice and passivity, not uppercuts and roundhouse kicks (sort of).  It is this sort of subjugation of expectations which I would suggest In Hell a cut above what’s typical for the genre, and it manages to do this while satisfying as an Action film.  This is a solid film on multiple levels, and its appeal should extend beyond Van Damme’s core fan base.  Ergo,  I have no problems with recommending this film to you.  Enjoy.

MVT:  Van Damme shows that he’s capable as an actor when he tries (and I would say he’s been proving this quite a lot of late).  The fight scenes are surprisingly not focused on making him look glamorous, and that’s a hell of a risk for a performer who made his bones the way he did.  I wouldn’t go so far as saying that this is Oscar caliber work, but Van Damme does manage to engage the viewer in the character’s journey, and to me, that’s what acting is.

Make Or Break:  The Make is the training montage around the midpoint of the film.  It not only shows Kyle getting himself in fighting shape, but it also crosscuts with more of Billy’s story as a contrast in approach.  These two men are resisting with what they have (or think they have), and the sequence is a nice summation of the film’s conflicts through largely visual methods.

Score:  7/10

Hard Target – Director’s Cut (1993)

When the big Hong Kong craze started in America in the early 1990s (of course, Chinese cinema was popular beforehand, most prominently in the form of the martial arts movies of the 60s through the 80s, but still...), it was like getting punched in the teeth with a set of brass knuckles (not an experience I recommend, by the by). While there were plenty of people aware of the talent off to the East, getting your hands on the actual product was both difficult and costly. Nonetheless, once Hollywood producers realized there was money to be made with these filmmakers, they started courting them to work over here. Of course, the impending return to power of the Communist party and the fear this engendered was an added concern to Chinese natives at the time and helped said filmmakers make the decision to leap across the pond. Given budgets higher than anything they had in their homeland but still considered relatively low in America, it seemed like these skilled craftsmen were all saddled with one other hurdle to breaking through to the mainstream in this country. They all had to make at least one movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. 

At the time, Van Damme was at the height of his popularity, and I suppose the (kind of ignorant) idea was that since martial arts are usually thought of as Asian, and these filmmakers are Asian, and Van Damme knows martial arts, then pairing these filmmakers with this star should produce results unheralded in the realm of action films. The four most noticeable directors (at least to my knowledge) to wade into this territory (but not the only expats, to be sure) were Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark, Kirk Wong, and John Woo. Of these four, only Wong didn't work directly with the seeming clearing house for Asian directors that was the "Muscles From Brussels." Also of the four, only Woo maintained a successful (if checkered) career in America before returning to China for the phenomenal Red Cliff. 

Natasha "Nat" Binder (Yancy Butler) travels to New Orleans to find her father, Douglas (writer and co-producer, Chuck Pfarrer). Unfortunately, the ex-marine had fallen on hard times and become homeless. Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen) and Pick van Cleef (Arnold Vosloo), coincidentally, run a service wherein they accommodate the hunting and killing of homeless vets for the pleasure of rich scumbags. Needless to say, Binder was a recent player (and loser) in Fouchon's game. Natasha hires destitute sailor, Chance Boudreaux (Van Damme), to help her find her dad (who she, of course, does not know is already dead). But when Chance and Natasha start asking questions, Fouchon decides to set his sights on the pair and unleash the hounds.

Hard Target is a take on Richard Connell's short story, "The Most Dangerous Game," first published in 1924. The idea (and the genesis of the title) comes from the story's aristocratic General Zaroff who feels that man is the most dangerous game of all to hunt. It has been adapted numerous times with varying quality. In this go at the tale, Fouchon's mindset is clarified for the viewer in the piano scene. As Fouchon bangs away at the keys, he stares at his reflection in a mirror. Woo intercuts to stock footage of actual animals being hunted and shot in (I presume) Africa. It's effective as a look into Fouchon's mind, and it's done completely without dialogue. Whether these shots were cut out because of the difference in quality of the stock footage to what Woo shot or because of any objections to actual depictions of animals being killed on screen (which would be my suspicion, though had this film been made in Hong Kong I believe they probably would have been left in), I can't say, but I prefer this former version, as it gives our villain some depth.

The filmmakers also seem highly concerned with the plight of the homeless. Unfortunately, they labor the point and kind of get on a soapbox about it. There are a couple of extended dialogue scenes (including a love scene), where we're reminded repeatedly how it is out there, on the streets. It gets old fast. However, the homeless people depicted in the film are given a certain amount of respect, and we do get a feel for the pride they have to swallow (nay, beat down) to survive. Douglas Binder is depicted in this version as being more than just a disheveled, harried prey. In the credit sequence, he makes it to the river, and Fouchon's "dogs" slow him down at the pier shack. Binder grabs a gas can and rolls it at the hunters, who inexplicably shoot at it until it explodes. In other words, he's allowed a moment to stand up, to show just why Fouchon and company carry on these hunts with these prey in the first place. The theatrical version takes this part away, and Binder is shown as pretty much a terrified rabbit scurrying tragically for safety. 

Aside from the dialogue-heavy, exposition-laden (and repetitive) scenes which were mercifully trimmed to keep the pace up, the other noticeable changes occur in the action sequences. Woo, as a director of action, was without peer at the time. As a matter of fact, his knack for kinetic, clearly-blocked action holds strong to this day. In this early cut of the film, the action scenes are almost all longer, and here Woo's signature style really shows through. His use of zooms, juxtaposition of slow motion to realtime action, explosions with showers of sparks, freeze frame transitions, wide angle lens usage and fast tracking shots both against and with action are all in evidence. Having said that, these scenes could all use some tightening up, however why they were cut down the way they were is a mystery. Perhaps it was to hit a certain runtime for the film (this cut is one hour, fifty-seven minutes, whereas the theatrical version is one hour, thirty-seven minutes). Perhaps the American producers felt it was too much for an American audience to take in (I somehow doubt it). Either way, to me it's like hiring a chef renowned for the best beef dishes in the world and then telling him you want one of these dishes prepared by him but without using beef.

There are some other differences, of course. The Mardi Gras graveyard finale is edited differently, with more emphasis placed on the cat and mouse aspects of the situation. Here, Woo shows us shots of the ex-floats leering, teasing, while Chance speaks from among them and, predominantly, offscreen. It's an interesting take on how to play the scene, and it works better than the more traditionally cut theatrical version. Van Damme (or more likely his stunt double) seems to do a lot of flips and somersaults around the warehouse. Thankfully, these shots were mostly removed from the final cut, as they are just flat-out silly. And funnily, Fouchon's fate in this edit is not nearly as satisfying as the one in the studio version. Actually, it's fairly offhand and a tad anticlimactic. 

So, which is the better version of the two? It's a fine hair to split, but I would give it to this "director's cut." Even with the more ridiculous scenes still in it (surfing on the motorcycle, punching the rattler, etcetera, you know, the ones you love), you get more of what makes Woo's movies great. Had Universal focused on refining this version and trimming its fat, they could have had one of the great action movies of the decade. Instead, they got an okay one.

MVT: John Woo takes the credit on this film. This film is a diamond in the (very) rough, and you can see that the man wasn't just phoning it in on his first American effort.

Make Or Break: The credit sequence shows us, in just a few different instances, the higher quality of film that Hard Target should have been.

Score: 7.5/10

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Yet Another GGtMC Approved Beer Commercial

This is one of the greatest things I've ever seen. In fact, this is one of the greatest things YOU'VE ever seen!

Enjoy. 

Thanks to my boy Cortez the Killer from Planet of Terror for sharing this incredible advertisement with me.

Candid Cuties: When Worlds Collide

There are so many questions that could be asked of this photo:

What did they talk about?

Was there, at any point in time, any snake eating going on by either of them? 

Who impregnated the most girls during the 10 seconds that it took to take this picture?

Are either of them wearing flip flops?

Where did Lorenzo park his bike?

  How many times did Claude 'casually' do the splits for onlookers?

Was there a dance off at some point?

These are all burning questions for sure, but the one that is most important, I believe, is how exactly does the planet survive a meeting of this magnitude without imploding, leaving only Jean and Lorenzo to roam the earth with no one left but each other? The answer lies within Claude Van's undervears, and forever will it stay there.  I'd personally like to think it has something to do with the new season of Lawman on the horizon, but what do I know?