Apparently I'm into self-torture.

In one of those moments that will leave me looking back and deeply questioning my reasoning and sanity, I decided today that I would watch all four Universal Soldier movies. Yes, four. The second one in theatres was actually the fourth one made. The second and third were just made for TV affairs, and...I'll start at the beginning.
Universal Soldier came out in 1992, and starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. All in all, it was an enjoyable flick. Van Damme did an admirable job of acting, and he's a pretty good fighter. I actually enjoyed Dolph as well. I think he made a decent villain, making me think that he really was a psychotic army guy. It was cheesy in parts, and the one-liners that are supposed to be funny, well, let's just say that Van Damme and Lundgren don't have the best timing in the world. Really, though, I enjoyed it, and it was five bucks well spent (I found it cheap at Zellers).
The sensible thing would have been to walk away. Or run away giggling. Or leave somehow. It's funny what greed and the hope for success can do.
Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms starred a block of wood as Van Damme. I mean, Matt Battaglia as Van Damme's character (named Luc Deveraux)(he's French)(from Louisianna). The love interest is continued from the first movie as well, with some blonde chick playing the blonde reporter. She has a name, it's not important. The best thing I can say about this movie is that it ended. Eventually. There were so many things that didn't make sense. The biggest one was that at the end of the first movie, Luc had regained his humanity, having turned from an unemotional amnesiac super-soldier into a person once again. He wasn't completely whole, but he definitely had regained most of his facilities. At the start of the second movie he seems to have regressed to a lower level than he had been at any time in the first movie. Heck, I'm surprised that he didn't need someone to tell him how to breathe. The woman, who is a reporter so that might explain this, manages to sneak her way into a top secret military installation and break open a cryogenic chamber and steal the guy who is instantly awake and emoting heavily. Does no one put alarms on these sorts of things?
I think that's a movie world idea. No one thinks that fail safes and warnings are necessary, or at least ones that are effective. In Total Recall, when the pressure dome is compromised on Mars and all of the breathable air is leaking out into the cold lifeless planet, someone has to push a button to cause the giant shield doors to slam down over the window, stopping the flow of air and making sure no one dies. Plus, every single window is covered, and all doors are shut, effectively trapping everyone in that room. How hard would it be to rig it to automatically close when containment is breached, and it would probably be easy to isolate that particular spot and drop only one shield into place. Same as with the second Universal Soldier. There are no alarms on the very expensive cryogenic chambers, not even a flashing light. It's like whoever designed it thought to themselves "a flashing light costs a buck at Canadian Tire, plus another couple bucks for the wiring, which would take ten minutes to install. Nah, it's easier just to assume nothing will go wrong." Plus, Burt Reynolds does what I can only assume is an Irish accent. I have to assume because it is so poorly done that it's hard to tell what exactly it is. Also, he is perpetually in shadow. He must never get a tan.
And then, someone in an oxygenless room decided to make Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business. Sadly, it was ever so slightly better than the last one. This time, the wood is back along with blondey, and now they have to stop Reynolds, who is much better lit this time, from stealing a few billion dollars worth of gold. For his part, Reynolds basically kills everyone he comes in contact with. And then he revives them for the Universal Soldier project. There isn't really much to say about this one. Oh, when Reynolds Unisols (as they are called) go to the top secret, highly guarded military facility where the gold is being flown in, they stand at the chain link fence and use a blowtorch to cut through the fence. A BLOWTORCH. Have these people never heard of bolt cutters? You know, things that DON'T produce light and which actually work QUICKLY? Frankly, I think it was just the script writer trying to get too clever. Oh, and this one featured a clone of Luc's brother, who had been the one rescued from the cryogenic container last movie (and who had died at the end). Of course, the clone somehow remembered Luc and couldn't kill him. And then he died again. Had a bomb in the chest, and it exploded. How awkward. At the end, Luc and the reporter are building a house together and talking about how they are going to take down the Unisol program.
Universal Soldier: The Return starts with Van Damme (he's back! Yay?) helping to train the next generation of Unisols. Apparently this movie ignored the two TV movies. And basically the first movie as well, because he really hadn't been happy with the Unisol people, nor had the reporter chick. And hey, if it ain't broken, then you are watching another movie all together. Why Luc is working with Unisol is never explained. The fact that he seems to not have any need for regular freezing like he did in the first movie (all Unisols had to freeze themselves about once a day else they would overheat and, um, die more) is never explained. Is he fully healed? Can he just go longer without needing to freeze? He has a daughter (is that even possible for a dead-then-reanimated person?), but his wife, presumably the blonde chick from the first movie, is dead (probably happened when she realised that she was technically sleeping with a corpse. Eeewwww). So of course, another spunky reporter shows up and trails him around the entire movie and falls in love with him. Let's see, the military moves in to implode a building. They decided that the best way to do this is to put explosive on the ground around the outside of the building. I may not know much about explosives, but that just seems wrong to me. After the final climactic battle Luc runs out of the building, shoots one of the explosives and they all go up in a huge firey ball. Again, I'm no explosives expert, but that just seems wrong somehow. And then he hugs his daughter and the movie ends. It felt very rushed. And Goldberg can't act.
There were some decent fights, and somehow I just like Van Damme. He seemed to be having fun in some places. Sadly, if I found this movie on sale for five bucks, I'd probably buy it, just to complete the set. I wouldn't reccommend it to anyone else though.
Sigh.