Film and television critic Matt Zoller Seitz stated that the Universal Soldier franchise "is a rare series that takes more creative risks as it goes along".[3]
In the first installment of the franchise, American soldier Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) finds that his superior officer, Andrew Scott (Lundgren), has turned violently deranged, and the two fight to the death during the Vietnam War. After their bodies are retrieved, they are placed into a secret program in which they are reanimated as superhuman agents and trained to become unquestioning killing machines. While Devereaux and Scott initially have no memory of their former lives, glimpses of their pasts start to return, rekindling their intense conflict.
After the original film was released, Carolco, the production company that backed the film, went bankrupt and sold the rights of the series to Skyvision Entertainment, located in Toronto, in 1995.[4] As a result, two TV films were released direct-to-video starring Matt Battaglia as Luc Deveraux and Chandra West as Veronica Roberts in Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms and Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business. The films were produced for Showtime / The Movie Channel as a miniseries meant as a backdoor pilot for a series.
This direct-to-video sequel takes place exactly after the events of the original Universal Soldier. Following the events of the original Universal Soldier testing, the budget has been slashed by the government; however, under the orders of a CIA director, a gang of mercenaries take control of the new line of Universal Soldiers and try to use them into helping to smuggle diamonds to the highest foreign buyer. Meanwhile, Luc Deveraux (Matt Battaglia) and Veronica Roberts (Chandra West) are in hiding on his parents’ farm. The UniSol controllers then activate a homing beacon embedded inside Deveraux's body that makes him return to the UniSol base in Chicago where his memory is reprogrammed. Veronica follows and while sneaking into the UniSol lab to rescue Luc, she discovers that his older brother Eric, a deceased soldier from Vietnam, has also been resurrected.
Luc Devereaux (Battaglia) and Veronica Roberts (Chandra West) continue their attempts to expose the Universal Soldier unit. After a hostage situation mistakenly leaves Veronica a fugitive, the two escape the city and go into hiding. Meanwhile, CIA Deputy Director Mentor (Burt Reynolds) and Dr. Walker are in the process of creating a powerful UniSol clone of Luc's brother, Eric (Jeff Wincott), to assassinate him and Veronica.
In this theatrical sequel to the original film (while ignoring the previous two television films), Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) had been reverted to human state and has a 13-year-old daughter called Hillary. He works with scientist Dylan Cotner to create a new, safer breed of fighters that are connected through an artificially intelligent computer system called S.E.T.H. (Self-Evolving Thought Helix). The project loses funding, and the supercomputer is scheduled to be turned off. To preserve itself S.E.T.H. takes over a superior UniSol model (White) and kidnaps Hillary. Deveraux must save his daughter and prevent the machine from destroying mankind.
In this revival of the franchise, Regeneration disregards the events of The Return as well as its made-for-cable predecessors[1][2] by beginning the film with Former UniSol Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) undergoing rehabilitation therapy in Switzerland under Dr. Sandra Fleming with the goal of rejoining society. However, when a terrorist sect uses an experimental Next Generation UniSol (NGU) to seize the atomic reactor at Chernobyl, Deveraux is reactivated to save the country from a nuclear catastrophe. Deveraux also has to contend with his nemesis, "Andrew" (Dolph Lundgren), the clone of his former Universal Soldier colleague who's been employed by the terrorists.
Directed by John Hyams, written by John Hyams, Doug Magnuson, and Jon Greenlagh, it stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Andrei "The Pit Bull" Arlovski, and Scott Adkins.
In the film, Luc Devereaux, who went rogue, has created a terrifying army of cloned UniSols determined to infiltrate the government which they hold responsible for their pain.
A special agent called John, willing to avenge his murdered family, is pitted against Deveraux and a new clone of Andrew Scott.
Future
Todd Black and Jason Blumenthal hired Richard Wenk to write the reboot in October 2018. The story will focus on one resurrected soldier.[5]
Television
In October 2011, writer Damien Kindler was set to write a Universal Soldier TV series for FremantleMedia North America with producers from the original film Allen Shapiro and Craig Baumgarten attached to the project.[6]
Universal Soldier: Regeneration revived the franchise in 2009 by disregarding the events of The Return, as well as its made-for-cable predecessors.[1][2] A Collider article that focuses on Day of Reckoning and interviews the film's director states that the latest installment in the franchise is "either the third, fourth or sixth film in the franchise depending on if you include the pair of non-canon direct-to-television sequels and/or the totally retconned Universal Soldier: The Return";[2] despite it, minor elements from these films can be found within the canon series including UniSol clones and UniSol sleeper-agents (from II and III).[8]
Production
Development
The Universal Soldier franchise began in 1992 with Universal Soldier, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. The series centers on two American soldiers, Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) and Andrew Scott (Lundgren), who are killed during the Vietnam War and reanimated in the 1990s as highly advanced Universal Soldiers.
In 1999, Van Damme returned for the fourth installment, Universal Soldier: The Return. An overwhelming critical and financial failure, The Return contradicted several elements of the previous film's plot by making Luc Deveraux no longer a Universal Soldier, giving him a daughter, and removing female protagonist Veronica Roberts.[8][9][10]
The subsequent film in the series, Universal Soldier: Regeneration, revived the franchise in 2009, disregarding the events of The Return, as well as its made-for-cable predecessors.[1][2]Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning featured Van Damme and Lundgren in much smaller roles, and introduced a new protagonist named John (Scott Adkins) fighting against both Deveraux and Scott.
^Jon Keeyes. "Universal Soldier 2". Cinefantastique. p. 21 – via Internet Archive. I was chopped down to basically one line in the beginning of the movie. I was not going to tell Jean-Claude that we worked together in the first one, but he remembered.
