Metacritic Film

Universal Soldier: The Return

Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Michael Jai-White, Bill Goldberg, Heidi Schanz, Karis Bryant, and Kiana Tom

MPAA RATING: R for nonstop strong violence, and for language and nudity

Sony Pictures Entertainment
Adventure
82 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters August 20, 1999

Luc Deveraux (Van Damme), who has survived his experiences as a Universal Soldier, recovered, and is now retired and working as a technical advisor on a government project to revive and improve the Universal Soldier training program, creating stronger, smarter and more versatile cyborg Soldiers. When S.E.T.H., the supercomputer controlling the Soldiers, becomes discontent and takes over a la HAL, Luc is the only one who can battle this team of deadly warriors and save the human race.

WRITTEN BY
William Malone
John Fasano
(characters) Richard Rothstein
Christopher Leitch

DIRECTED BY
Mic Rodgers

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

24 / 100

Critic Reviews

80 Los Angeles Times
Sleek...This is one "return" that's surely welcome.
75 San Francisco Chronicle
Has a shameless B-movie exuberance.
59 Mr. Showbiz
Engagingly silly sub-"Moonlighting"-style banter.
33 Entertainment Weekly
Jean-Claude Van Damme's latest dud.
30 TNT RoughCut Matt Kelsey
This testosterone-fest even features a battle inside a strip bar replete with topless women. Talk about your guilty pleasures.
30 Variety
Lightning fails to strike twice -- an underwhelming follow-up to one of the career-stalled action star's better efforts.
30 Chicago Reader
Must have been slapped together fast: live-action stunts created by uninspired editing lead up to computer-generated imagery that's just as lame.
25 New York Post Rod Dreher
The Return is about bullets, bombs and boobs - the biggest boob being Van Damme, natch, but there are also mammaries aplenty.
25 Boston Globe Betsy Sherman
Devoid of personality and has an annoying gratuitous sentimental streak.
20 TV Guide
Plenty of bone-crunching brawn, but not a brain cell in sight.
20 Film.com
Custom-made for an audience of mouth-breathers.
10 Film.com
Slow-moving and violent mess...feels slow even at a scant 82 minutes...Even by the slack standards of Van Damme's oeuvre, "The Return" is a letdown.
10 LA Weekly
A mind-numbing exercise in high body counts and big tits.
0 Austin Chronicle Russel Smith
Lame, mindless dialogue makes Wing Commander seem Cukoresque by comparison.

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