One thing we have Expendables to thank for or in some people’s eyes curse over is the slew of 70/80’s action superstars making a return to our screens. Both Arnie and Sly have current box office entries with The Last Stand and Bullet to the Head. However they’re not the only ones, with Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning bringing back JCVD and Dolph Lundgren (Stars of the 1992 original) and giving them a chance to show action fans if they’ve still got it.
Unfortunately we’re only given what could be called a cameo from both of them. Collectively their screen time adds up to maybe ten minutes, but this doesn’t do anything bad for the film. If anything this is a good thing. Both these two action legends are slightly over the hill, Lundgren more so than Jean-Claude, and trying to have these two in the starring roles would have definitely detracted from any plot or action.
Instead director John Hyams introduces a new breed of UniSol with Scott Adkins’ John. At the start of the film John witnesses the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of Luc Deveraux (JCVD). Then he wakes up from a coma with no memory and just fragments hello Jason Bourne! John then spends the rest of the film piecing together his memory and tracking down Deveraux and his band of loyal Unisol revolutionaries.
Despite the film series’ iconic stars only featuring briefly, Day of Reckoning does pretty well for a run of the mill actioner. The story is one we have seen before. A splice of Bourne with a dash of Arnie’s The 6th Day thrown in. The film doesn’t really rest on the original films ideas and goes for a different take on the super soldier theme likely so they can churn out a few more sequels off the back of this one.
The action in the film is definitely brutal, the fight sequences are visceral and powerful, and when your characters can essentially fight beyond death you’re going to get some eventful fights. This will almost definitely keep fans of classic 80s and 90s action films happy. I can guarantee you’ll be hard pushed to find another action film that features this many heads exploding! The film’s finale features a great one shot track of hero John punching through some villains like Swiss cheese and you will be struggling to keep down those testosterone levels.
However, the film slightly overlong and resting a bit too much on the exposition, and despite his fantastic martial arts skills, Scott Adler falls a bit short in the leading man department. The film is a good ride though and it’s definitely aware of what a good action film is meant to be: car chases, women, blood, impossible fights, minimal storyline. Not taking itself too seriously, unlike Sly’s first Expendables movie, director John Hyams knows exactly what the audience wants and brings it with a head exploding punch.
Overall Verdict: Nothing groundbreaking but a fun actioner for fans of the original film and those that just want to go back to when action films were all about the guns and violence.
Reviewer: Gareth Haworth