Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business Reviews

Those zombie fightin' fools just refuse to die, and so does the UNISOL action franchise; this made-for-cable film was made the same year as UNIVERSAL SOLDIER II: BROTHERS IN ARMS. When we left resurrected US soldier Luc Devreaux (Matt Battaglia) and fugitive TV newswoman Veronica Roberts (Chandra West), they had found Luc's reanimated brother Eric (Jeff Wincott), who sacrificed his life for them. Now Risco (Burt Reynolds), the madman behind the Universal Soldier program (UNISOL), has hatched a plot to use his living-dead troops to seize a shipment of gold bullion intended as Holocaust reparations. Risco also orders mad scientist Dr. Walker (Richard McMillan) to breed a fast-growing, super-baby warrior; Walker uses Eric's DNA in his cloning formula. Meanwhile, as Veronica meets up with her former TV boss Charles (Juan Chioran), terrorists invade the Cyberwealth conference he's covering. Although Luc massacres the terrorists and rescues Veronica, Risco steals the corpses and transforms them into universal soldiers. Luc captures one of Risco's warriors, retrieves data that exposes Risco's plan to steal the bouillon, and decides to stop the theft. But the Eric-clone, who's been conditioned to hate Luc, is maturing rapidly; will he defeat his good brother? This hybrid action/sci-fi pictures isn't great entertainment, but the script adds some solid twists --including Dr. Walker's creation of the first synthetic soldier and Risco's recycling of dead terrorist trash - to the familiar warp-speed train chases, high-rise takeovers, and testosterone-pumped martial arts skirmishes. The silken teamwork of West and Battaglia is an unexpected pleasure; unfortunately, they're pitted against a surprisingly lackluster pair of villains in McMillan's mad scientist and Reynold's power-psycho.