Universal Soldiers (2007)
REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long
3/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
COMPANY: The Asylum
RUNTIME: 85 mins
FORMAT: DVD
PLOT: A Marine unit sent into an island base to save a professor, meets what they are trying to save the professor from: Genetically modified super soldiers that have gone awry and have escaped from their maximum security holding cells.
REVIEW: The Asylum is very well-known for their mockbusters, many of which I've covered in past reviews. However, despite the title, Universal Soldiers is actually more of a Terminator mockbuster then Universal Soldier, and is actually kind of a nice companion piece to Asylum's The Terminators as both movies are very similar to one another, have plots that are pretty close together, filmed in the same style, and may even potentially share some of the same effects shots. The main difference - That one is actually enjoyable and this one is not.
The acting is decent for the most part (a couple people aside), but the audio is of such terrible quality that you can't even hear the dialog half the time, so really, the acting is pretty hard to judge. It doesn't help that it has such a jarring beginning and you're left feeling confused and lost, with hardly any explanation as to what's even going on - Seriously, as the movie starts we're already plucked down into the middle of the action with no backstory given to us as to how the characters got into the middle of this situation. It really feels like coming into a movie that you've never seen before half-way through, and being expected to understand everything and follow along. Because of this, you spend the entire movie just being lost at what the heck is even going on and who these people are.
The action and chase scenes are well-made though, with some pretty interesting death scenes (although they're pretty repetitive), but that's pretty much the only enjoyable aspects of Universal Soldiers, neither of which are worth spending the 80-odd minutes it takes to watch this. I know Asylum is known for their cheap production values, but this one takes the cake, coming across and feeling like having been slapped together from initial idea phase all the way to production completion over the course of just a week.
RUNTIME: 85 mins
FORMAT: DVD
PLOT: A Marine unit sent into an island base to save a professor, meets what they are trying to save the professor from: Genetically modified super soldiers that have gone awry and have escaped from their maximum security holding cells.
REVIEW: The Asylum is very well-known for their mockbusters, many of which I've covered in past reviews. However, despite the title, Universal Soldiers is actually more of a Terminator mockbuster then Universal Soldier, and is actually kind of a nice companion piece to Asylum's The Terminators as both movies are very similar to one another, have plots that are pretty close together, filmed in the same style, and may even potentially share some of the same effects shots. The main difference - That one is actually enjoyable and this one is not.
The acting is decent for the most part (a couple people aside), but the audio is of such terrible quality that you can't even hear the dialog half the time, so really, the acting is pretty hard to judge. It doesn't help that it has such a jarring beginning and you're left feeling confused and lost, with hardly any explanation as to what's even going on - Seriously, as the movie starts we're already plucked down into the middle of the action with no backstory given to us as to how the characters got into the middle of this situation. It really feels like coming into a movie that you've never seen before half-way through, and being expected to understand everything and follow along. Because of this, you spend the entire movie just being lost at what the heck is even going on and who these people are.
The action and chase scenes are well-made though, with some pretty interesting death scenes (although they're pretty repetitive), but that's pretty much the only enjoyable aspects of Universal Soldiers, neither of which are worth spending the 80-odd minutes it takes to watch this. I know Asylum is known for their cheap production values, but this one takes the cake, coming across and feeling like having been slapped together from initial idea phase all the way to production completion over the course of just a week.
3/10 rooms in the Psych Ward
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