Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)

“Delirious Lynchian mind-screw” doesn’t come to the mind when one sits for an action flick (and fifth in a series) starring Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, but that exactly is “Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning,” a skull-smashing, gun-heavy treat. 

Director John Hyams (son of Peter) daringly switches-up the concept of the first (and awful) film about slain U.S. soldiers genetically reengineered as unstoppable warriors, and plops them right in the U.S. of A., playing on Tea Party paranoia, government black ops, and “Apocalypse Now” showdowns with Van Damme as Kurtz, ghoulish in heavy makeup. 

The plot follows a man (Scott Adkins) who awakens from a coma nine months after watching his family slain by mysterious intruders. Grieved and lost, he obsesses over the attackers. He’s also hunted by seemingly unkillable men who unexplainably like his own body can grow back appendages after they are chopped off. 

The less you know the better, because it’s a kick of a nightmarish journey with hidden meanings about NRA kill-or-be-killed addictions so off kilter from this typical genre, I wanted more. The junk dialogue and headache-inducing strobe-light effects are easily forgiven. B+

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