| Universal Soldier III:Unfinished Business (1999) Cast:Matt Battaglia, Burt Reynolds, Jeff Wincott, Chandra West This time Luc Deveraux (Battaglia) stumbles upon a conspiracy from Burt Reynolds to steal billions of dollars in gold, to finace his program of Universal Soldiers, of course along the way they create an awesome soldier who may indeed be the best soldier they ever created of course that means only Battaglia and West can stop Reynolds in this tiresome TV sequel, which surprisingly emerges as the best sequel. Of all the stars to ever replace Jean-Claude Van Damme in a franchise, the only one that ever (somewhat) worked was Sasha Mitchell. Period. However of all the actors to replace Van Damme, Matt Battaglia has to be the worst. The man just sho uld not be doing anything close to a starring role, the only type of role Battaglia may work in is perhaps a silent role where he just dishes out damage, as an actor, let me put it to you this way, he can't even get playing a robot right. However by some miracle Universal Soldier III manages to be slightly more watchable than Universal Soldier II and Universal Soldier:The Return. Only because of Reynolds and the fact that the story is slightly more ambitious. Infact the ending provides real amusement as it is revealed that almost everyone high up in the government is a" Universal Soldier", which would establish that perhaps a war could break out between humans and Universal Soldiers but of course this isn't the focus of the film, the lame story instead deals with Battaglia stoping Reynolds from stealing gold, which isn't very fun to watch to say the least. Although this time there are moments when things actually entertain for a moment or so, such as when Battaglia foils terrorists and people describe him as a superhero, infact one could really have had something with this plot thread. Unfortunately it's dropped, and of course most interesting ones are. Infact it seemed like Wincott and Battaglia were gonna have a fight that while not exactly a star pairing would initiate some excitement. Alas all of these plot threads are dropped in favor of overripe melodrama. As an actioner Universal Soldier III has once again none of the craftsmanship or excitement of the original, it is simply a lifeless excercise in moronic action. D.Jeff Woolnough*1/2 . |