Universal Soldier III

A film devoid of merit, it almost defies articulation in its lack of creativity, originality, and knowledge of film making. Burt Reynolds provides a complete rationale for why his career has almost come to an end with a performance that probably best describes his true essence. This film has accomplished one feat I would have thought impossible, it almost made Jean-Claude Van Damme's earlier version seem worthwhile. Put a torch to this tape and spare future viewers the wasted time.

This movie is a direct sequel to the second Universal Soldier movie, and makes no sense alone. Here, we get to know a bit more about things we were so extremely excited to know (yeah, right), for example who the leader of the bad guys is. The story becomes a bit more interesting than in the previous movie, and because of that I think it's a better one. The action is also better (although it still sucked). Battaglia does the same job all over again, Jeff Wincott should just forget that he ever took part in this, and Burt Reynolds (!!!, yes, Burt is in fact in this one. How low can you get) has just gone down the drain. This is not a great movie at all, but it can't be used as a torture device like it's prequel.

Unfinished Business indeed. As if you hadn't been bored to death already, here's another hour and a half to really knock you out. In case there's anyone out there at all interested, this follows straight on from the 'cliffhanger' of no.2 "Brothers in Arms" (NOT "The Return"), following the exploits of poor old Luc what's-his-name and some woman as they get ever closer to uncovering the truth behind an illegal government conspiracy to sell undead soldiers to......snore.....snore.....snore. I can't quite remember, but I think there might actually be an explosion in this film somewhere - just for all you high-octane action junkies out there. Oh and occasionally people fire big guns. Other highlights? The trailers and the end credits. Yes, it's really THAT good.

If you can actually tolerate watching "Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business" all the way through, you find yourself much like Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix" with all you can say being, "whoa." This whole movie is just plain weird. The sheer fact that the producers made a cheesy spin off "Universal Soldier II" only to make a sequel-to-the-sequel "Universal Soldier III" tells you someone had too much fun with the storyline. Amazingly enough, despite the low budget nature of this film, the acting (while poor) and scenes are surprisingly better than "Universal Soldier: The Return" which says something about the quality of sequels. If you can't sleep at night, this is one of those movies you can watch to waste time.