"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning trailer #2

A better trailer. Looks like a totally different movie than REGENERATION. Devereaux really is the bad guy now? Should be interesting.

thanks to Stu for the heads up

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31 Responses to “Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning trailer #2”

  1. Aha, clones. So that’s why Deveraux is evil now. (I guess. Maybe he finally snapped and started cloning UniSols for calamitous intent.)

  2. So they’ve finally revealed what we saw at Actionfest.

  3. Now this preview has me excited.

  4. So are we just like, making movies set in the Universal Soldier universe with the same cast now, and not worrying about if they have anything to do with each other?

  5. I think it’s going to be the “seems like the bad guy but winds up still being a good guy at the end” deal. I hope he is a straight-up villain, though. He was a fantastic bad guy in The Expendables 2.

  6. I read a spoiler filled review on imdb, so what I can say is that Adkins has a final fight with both Lundgren and Van Damme, and that there is some Total Recall-like-shenanigans and ambiguity. I guess it will be left up to our imagination like Total Recall did (at least the original). It seem to be a little over ambitious. The review said Hyams tried to be a little like David Lynch with nightmares and more surreal images.

  7. I think that this looks awesome and has real potential to be the best of the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER sequels. What’s more, it’s getting a theatrical release in the U.S., I really can’t wait.

  8. Kirk Fucking Douglas

    September 13th, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    In the last one they brought him out and forced him into doing the mission and he took off at the end, now it looks like he’s leading a revolution among the unisols, how is that nothing to do with the previous ones? They always have the hero act like he’s sick of being used as killing tool for the government, now when somebody tries to do something interesting with the concept and people are all “What the hell he’s EVIL now shit don’t make sense! Why isn’t exactly like the other ones!” I don’t get some of you guys.

  9. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING 3D is the one movie to end badass cinema once and for all. It rips its HEART OF DARKNESS out with bare hands to finally cut it into pieces with a machete. It’s the most disturbing, most intense film I have ever seen on the big screen (and by the way the most artfully directed 3D film ever). It’s a ferocius beast. It does for badass cinema what MARTYRS did for terror cinema, what 2001 did for SF, what APOCALYPSE NOW did for war cinema. If DRAGON EYES has been John Hyams DOGVILLE this is his IRREVERSIBLE. The movie has had his world premiere over here in germany at the Fantasy Filmfest and since then became to most heartfully loved piece of pure cinema art by the cinephilles that have been lucky enough to catch it. Believe me, there never have been a movie like this before. This will change everything we true lovers of badass cinema belived in before. It cuts everthing open. It ripps everthing apart.

  10. John Hyams just shared this on your Facebook page:

  11. Kirk, maybe because he appears to be acting NOTHING like he did in the previous ones? Nothing remotely similar about them, other than that they have the same name? If you can’t grasp how THAT simple fucking concept makes it “not like the other ones”, I dunno what else to tell you, most kids understand the concept I figured you would too.

  12. D.S. – No need for hostility. Let’s not fight over Universal Soldier. I agree that it looks totally different, but all of the chapters are very different from the ones before. The two cable ones of course don’t feel anything like the original, The Return suddenly makes Deveraux be alive and have a daughter, Regeneration wisely ignored that and had an entirely different continuity, look and tone from 1, 2, 3 or 4. So going into a different genre and approach in this one is in the eestablished tradition of the series.

  13. My apologies if this has already been shared elsewhere, but it seems as though the theatrical and possibly VOD versions of US:DOR will be censored to achieve an R rating. http://www.movie-censorship.com/news_en.php?ID=4153

  14. But VOD is built for uncut shit. I want to see relentless machete focused action dammit so I hope this isn’t true.

  15. I was really surprised how much I loved REGENERATION. In fact, my only reservation about this flick is how much of a hard right turn it seems to be taking from the last picture. It seems to be forgoing all the mad scientist stuff that I enjoyed so much for a more cult of super soldiers approach, with our man Jean-Claude as the ring leader. Not what I expected when our hero walked away from Chernobyl. However, knowing that John Hyams is back in the saddle I’m willing to give RECKONING the benefit of the doubt.

    If I may be so bold, while Vern’s totally right that this series plays fast and loose with the rules as to what makes a UniSol and UniSol, the first film started with them being reanimated corpes with ludicrous body temperature issues, and subsequent films just kind of ignored that. I could take or leave the heat subplot, but bringing people back from the dead to serve as weapons seems like such a rich area you could explore. Hyams is going more for the cloning aspect, but if he ever checks these boards I’d like to toss out that this is interesting (the dead being brought back as inhuman killing machines) and could give you some great story lines.

  16. Like the Colonel Kurtz action from JCVD. This should be decent.

  17. The plot of UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING is a well thought off continuation of the things laid bare in REGENERATION. In addition to the horror of that film where the soldiers have to live in a world without beeing able to feel something, DAY OF RECKONING shows us now a unforgiving cruel world, where also nobody is allowed to die anymore. It’s like the Anti-EXPENDABLES. Completely unironic. Pure art. Both trailers suggest a different movie I saw a few weeks ago. I don’t know if it’s such a wise move to downplay all the intelligence in this movie and selling it like just another big bang action movie. Audience reactions here at the Fantasy Filmfest in germany where it totaly rocked away anybody would suggest otherwise. Nearly nobody seemed to expected that kind of big movie it obvious is. It totaly seemed to shell-shocked everybody with it’s big ideas, it’s brilliant direction, It’s equally tender as nihilistic world view. This is a so much bigger beast of a movie anyone seems expected it to be. Sony should start selling it that way.

  18. Yesterday it had it´s US Premiere at Fantastic Fest and there is nothing to find on the Web.
    On Aint it Cool they review every Shit,but not this one.
    They were two glowing raves from Germany,written by Guys who saw it at the Fantasy Filmfest,but thats it.
    This lack of Information is frustrating,cause i realy can´t wait for this Film.

  19. I recently read on a German message board about it. I didn’T even know it was running at FFF, but I never make it to there anyway.
    The reaction was definitely split. Apparently it’s not a quick b-action banger, but instead full of big ideas, that you wouldn’t expect from a UNIVERSAL SOLDIER sequel. Those who liked it REALLY loved, but those who didn’t REALLY hated it.

  20. I was searching Twitter for it last night to see what people were saying. Seemed to be universal (get it) acclaim for the fight scenes, but mixed on the movie as a whole. The people who didn’t like it seemed to think it was really weird and confusing, which is not entirely bad news in my opinion since that’s not what you expect in a Universal Soldier movie. Other people seemed to love it. Can’t wait to see it for myself.

  21. I think »weird« and »confusing« is a positive interpretation of the movie. I’ve read some German reviews that sound a lot like Sebastians thoughts on the movie. Some are calling it a badass masterpiece.

    The movie is definitely ambitioned, they tried to make something completely different. I’ve read in a interview that John Hyams was inspired by David Cronenberg, David Lynch and Gaspar Noe.

    It just didn’t work for me at all. I’ve already written at other places on this site that I loved the opening shot but then the movie completely lost me. But not because it was »weird« or »confusing«. I like »weird« and I love it when a movie challenges me. But this one didn’t challenge me at all.

    For me it was a badly written, badly acted, badly told and extremely boring mess. Maybe all these pointless dialogue scenes can be interpreted as a clever comment on bad DTV movies, but using some stroboscobe effects and drag out every scene doesn’t make it art.

    I wouldn’t say I hated it. In the first half hour I liked it for it’s ambition, but then it became more like watching a bad school play or a Platinum Dunes remake: You get what they are trying, but they just haven’t a clue how to do it.

  22. Found this Review now.While not on full “Masterpiece Modus” ,it still looks like the Guy likes it more for what it is,
    than dislike it for what it is not.
    I never watched the Emmerich but i loved Regeneration.For me,one of the best B Genre Movies since the Original
    Terminator.I only hope,that John Hyams dont choose the same Route James Cameron take and making 200 Million
    Dollar Kitsch,in a few Years from now.

    http://twitchfilm.com/2012/09/fantastic-fest-2012-universal-soldier—day-of-reckoning-will-take-your-head-off.html

  23. Thanks for those links, Pike. They’ve got my curiousity well and truly piqued. It sounds immense.

    And nice to see that the uncut version will indeed be available on VOD.

  24. I pretty much agree with this:

    “Not so much a traditional sequel as a hallucinogenic riff on an entire franchise, “Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning” plays like the fevered fantasy of a die-hard genre fan who requires only the haziest sort of dream logic to connect extended sequences of hand-to-hand, foot-to-ass, machete-to-arm and bullet-to-head combat. There’s something perversely fascinating about helmer John Hyams’ freewheeling yet deliberately paced mashup of noirish mystery, splatter-movie intensity, first-person-shooter vidgame and “Apocalypse Now”-style surrealism.”

    Source:
    http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117948392/

    I couldn’t really say that everything that the movie attempts to do (which is a lot) ‘works’, but it’s something special for sure. I was very impressed with it.

  25. You know,i am a little bit pissed and i tell you why.I know of course,that not all US Critics where at Fantastic Fest in
    Austin TX,and there will be more Reviews coming with a wider release.Can´t wait for Verns,of course,but have also
    high Hopes for the one by Ignatiy V(forget how to write that name).
    But there was no Word,in Keyframe Daily´s Fantastic Fest Roundup,and still nothing at aintitcool.
    And that is not Cool at all,if you ask me.Aint “Day of Reckoning” exactly the kind of R Rated or Unrated ballsy B Picture
    thes Guys should support ? Just asking.

  26. The Trailer on the German Website is a little bit different.But very good.

    http://universalsoldier.pmhe.de/

  27. Better late than never.But they are realy lukewarm on it.Not that i care ,it is just so boring when i hear People who lamenting about too much Story.I just now noticed,that Roy Jones JR is in this Movie too.

    http://www.aintitcool.com/node/58585

  28. The IGN review is positive, though in a backhanded sort of way
    “It’s intriguing stuff, with shades of Frankenstein, Blade Runner, Total Recall and even Apocalypse Now thrown into the mix. But the conceit of telling the tale from John’s POV is equally frustrating, the audience spoon-fed information that confuses when it should illuminate. Indeed the narrative poses more questions than it answers meaning that come the conclusion it becomes difficult to understand the motivation of many of the characters.
    But it’s a strange moviegoer who watches a Universal Soldier feature for plot, and mercifully the action delivers in spades.”

  29. John Hyams posted a link to this new trailer he cut himself on Vern’s Facebook page. Hopefully Vern will create a new post to embed it (it’s frustratingly only at Yahoo Movies, one of those shitty sites like IGN that watermark other people’s creative output):

    http://movies.yahoo.com/video/ymoviesredband-29056098/universal-soldier-day-of-reckoning-red-band-trailer-30926867.html

    There’s even a quote from regular commenter Fred Topel in this very different look at the movie.

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