Sunday, July 10, 2011

Universal Soldiers (2007)

A professor develops the ultimate solder, which in this type of movie always equates to an unstoppable killing machine. When things go horribly wrong, as they do, and the soldiers break free from the lab, a team of Marines is called in to take control.

Unfortunately this is the worst Marine unit ever and all they do is bitch, moan, and freak out about the cyborg soldiers who will probably kill them. Plus they argue about whether they should head to the amory for weapons, or to the lab for access to the mainframe. Uh, wouldn't that be the call of whoever is in command? Last time I checked, military units were not democracies.

The Marines are shooting randomly at the cyborgs even though they have limited ammunition, and are running around the countryside trying to keep from getting killed. Sound exciting? Well it's not because it's all a whole lot of nothing happening except a bunch of unlikable characters -who are in no way Marines except for their generic military fatigues- whining and arguing about everything. They do not know how to hold their guns and they move like a group of civilians with no military training who have never even seen movie or news footage of soldiers.

Plus they are constantly freaking out about everything, spend most of their time arguing, feeling sorry for themselves, and being insubordinate. Seriously? They would not have survived in the Marines. These are not the best or even the adequate. These are the incompetent.

When they get a call on the walkie talkie that a rescue team is on the island, they rejoice (which is great as they had been telling poor me stories about how difficult their childhoods were). Next thing you know the walkie is squwaking with screams but the tack sharp Marines can't figure out what's happening and keep asking what's going on. Come on! You're on an island with rogue killer cyborgs, the rescuers are at the lab, and you can't figure out what is happening?

Another ridiculous scene occurs when the team fearfully make their way along the path. They are tense after the first attack of the cyborgs - who run fast in the background, go up trees, and appear to have costumes out of 1960s Star Trek episodes. Suddenly their captain is caught in a snare that leaves him hanging upside down from a tree. The appropriate reaction based on everything that has occurred is to go into defensive mode, and watch for the enemy while someone cuts him down. As Marines, they should be a cohesive unit and protect each other. But their reaction is laughter. Ahaha, you're hanging from a tree. Isn't it funny? No, it's not. You're in danger and cyborgs are loose. Get a grip man!

The sound is horrible and often seems like perhaps they were using cheap mics that overloaded. There's distortion and clipping on lots of characters, but it's not consistent. The Marines yell alot so maybe it is as simple as the mics overloading.

We couldn't get through this one. It was so bad and going nowhere. They give no background of what is going on, nor any exposition. You just pick up the plot from random things the characters say, such as all of a sudden one asks how they're going to get off the island. So they're on an island? How would I know that?

But the biggest question of all is, when will scientists learn that they should develop an almost unstoppable killing machine, rather than one who might get loose and kill its developers?

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