The new Universal Soldier picture, the latest in the series about genetically-modified supermen raging against their government creators, is a curious exercise in cognitive dissonance; here you have an action flick high on gory, bone-crunching slicing and dicing and kicking and punching — everything star and Ben Affleck doppelganger Scott Adkins ( Undisputed II and III ) can possibly do to evoke oohs and aahs in 3-D in the serious-faced, beefy fashion of his ’80s and ’90s predecessors — and yet director John Hyams didn’t sound completely delusional this week at Fantastic Fest when he said his UniSol fourquel was influenced by David Cronenberg, Michael Haneke, and (yes, I see it, kinda!) even art house provocateur Gaspar Noe. Stylistically these references are obvious, even if they add little to the overarching point of Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning 3D . Hyams opens with a neat, tricksy sequence that sets up the plot (and makes the best use of 3-D) through the first-person POV of family man John (Adkins); forced to watch as masked intruders murder his wife and child, we see through John’s eyes as he’s beaten to near-death, the only lasting clue left in his brain being the stone-faced mug of Jean-Claude Van Damme (reprising his role as veteran UniSol Luc Deveraux). When John comes to in a hospital recovery bed with nothing but the lingering memory of that night, he sets out to put the missing puzzle pieces together, which leads him to a strip club and a dancer (Mariah Bonner) who seems to know him. Meanwhile, an agent nicknamed The Plumber (Belarusian MMA fighter Andrei Arlovsky) is activated to wipe out his own kind but is re-educated by a swaggering, confident ex-UniSol ( Dolph Lundren ) bent on spreading the gospel of his boss — Van Damme as cult figure, not a crazy stretch — who seeks to build an army of disgruntled Unisols into raging against The Man. Few elements of the Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning script make much sense (John’s line of vengeance-logic; The Plumber’s proclivity for wearing his plumber uniform everywhere he goes ), and the film meanders through some interminably long, wannabe noir-ish plot stretches to set up reasons for its stars to brawl and, y’know, grow back severed body parts. But Hyams satisfies where it matters — in his slashing, limb-severing, body-pounding action, and the physically impressive Adkins, a stunt performer turned leading man. Saddled with the tough job of playing a vacant-eyed man-machine with no memories and a vague sense of self, Adkins at least comes alive when he’s in his element. (A seemingly seamless single-shot sequence — beautifully and brutally choreographed, though stitched together via subtle CG movie magic — is one for the highlight reel.) Notably, Adkins, Van Damme, and Lundgren turn in far more compelling work than they did in their last film together, Expendables 2 , though maybe that’s not saying much. Van Damme, gloriously off-kilter in that picture, is a study of coiled restraint in Oreo cookie Apocalypse Now face paint; Lundgren might be at his career best – again, perhaps not saying much. In the least, and most significantly, Day of Reckoning should propel British martial artist/stunt veteran Adkins out of the niche genre world — action cinema’s Adkins diet? Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning hits VOD October 25, followed by a theatrical run November 30. Read more from Fantastic Fest . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
