86 Responses to “And while we’re at it, a new Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning trailer”

1. 

   karlos

   October 25th, 2012 at 4:15 am

   Glad you dug it, Vern. Look forward to your full review. A lot of people whose opininons I respect are saying this is great so I’m now really looking forward to this.

   Also, the new trailer is showing as removed?

2. 

   El Vincento

   October 25th, 2012 at 4:17 am

   Better than the Iron Man 3 trailer? I do think so!

3. 

   Pike Bishop

   October 25th, 2012 at 5:17 am

   O my God! I want to see this badly.But i am afraid,this will never find it´s way to Germany in all of it´s uncut Glory.
   We can´t even dream,of a 3D Cinematic Release.
   So i have to wait for an uncut US DVD i guess.

4. 

   CJ Holden

   October 25th, 2012 at 5:30 am

   Pike, the FSK maybe said “no” to the uncut version, but REGENERATION got released with the SPIO/JK seal too, so until further notice, I wouldn’t worry too much.

5. 

   Pike Bishop

   October 25th, 2012 at 5:53 am

   @ C.J.Holden

   You are right.They did this with “Killer Joe”too.

6. 

   Sutter Cane

   October 25th, 2012 at 7:09 am

   Loved this flick. It’s basically a horror film with action in it, and very well made.

7. 

   Bad Seed

   October 25th, 2012 at 9:46 am

   The new trailer is excellent. Consider me psyched. Can’t wait for the review Vern!

8. 

   Stu

   October 25th, 2012 at 1:17 pm

   Looking forward to the review. By the way, a new poster and international trailer for A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD have been released:
   http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/10/25/new-trailer-and-poster-for-a-good-day-to-die-hard

9. 

   Mr. Majestyk

   October 25th, 2012 at 1:26 pm

   Speaking of misunderstood sci-fi mindfucks, is anyone else going to see CLOUD ATLAS this weekend? I haven’t seen one frame of footage, never even heard of the book until the movie was announced, and despite having read a couple of reviews still don’t really even know what it’s about, but it’s the Wachowskis so it gets seen. Those are the rules, no matter what all these “The rave scene in RELOADED made me feel funny in my area so that makes the fact that Morpheus fights an SUV with a sword somehow not the awesomest thing ever” haters might think. They do it like no one else has, does, would, could, will ever, or possibly should do it, and that gets my lazy ass out to the movie theater, no questions asked.

10. 

    Mr. Subtlety

    October 25th, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    JESUS, this thing looks like a horror film now. That is honestly the ballsiest and craziest trailer I’ve seen in many a year. If that honestly is an accurate representation of the film, I’m 100% more excited than I already was.

11. 

    Henry Swanson

    October 25th, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    Man, trailers get a whole lot more interesting when the film director cuts them.

    I was worried when various people were saying this film was an incomprehensible mess, but after seeing that fantastic trailer and hearing Vern liked it, I’m excited again.

    All that close-quarters gunplay mixed with martial arts looks incredible, not to mention how dangerous and difficult that must have been to choreograph.

    I guess the gun-barrel blasts are done in post in those situations where they are firing them near people’s faces.

12. 

    Mouth

    October 25th, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    What Mr. Majestyk said. I’ll be paying for everything with the Wachowski name attached to it.

    CLOUD ATLAS the book is excellent entertainment. It didn’t really resonate with me as something philosophically deep, but I mostly loved it. It never drags, and it’s maybe the first book I’ve ever read for pleasure and then immediately researched online to confirm that the plots & settings, according to others’ descriptions, were indeed as I had envisioned in my own imagination. It’s clever and beautiful

    (-“My bruises, cuts, muscles & extremities groaned like a courtroom of malcontent litigants.”
    -David Mitchell, CLOUD ATLAS)

    but I don’t regard it as necessarily rich, transcendent literature in the sense you might get from some of the reviews and the epicness of the movie trailers. Very worth reading, but it won’t change your life.

    I’ll have to go to another market to access UNISOL: D.O.R. on demand; on my cable box, I can watch the new Amy Heckerling-Alicia Silverstone joint, VAMPS, which I’m sure is going to be excellent, but I can’t yet get my Hyams fix. Of course I’d prefer to see this in 3D in the theatre, but it’ll be tough to wait 5 more weeks.

13. 

    Griff

    October 25th, 2012 at 6:43 pm

    guys, is CLOUD ATLAS limited release or something? because it doesn’t seem to be playing anywhere near me

14. 

    onthewall2983

    October 25th, 2012 at 6:49 pm

    It’s playing in four theaters around me and I’m firmly in wide-release territory.

15. 

    Amazing Larry

    October 25th, 2012 at 8:16 pm

    @Griff: It damn well better be in wide release. It’s a 2-hour & 52-minute, $100 million budgeted, soon-to-be-esoteric kaliedoscope of a movie. I give the Wachowski brother/sister tandem bonus big cojones points for thinking they can pull this off AND find a wide audience… but something tells me it’s gonna be DOA, or very close to it.

    Resident craveonline rep and budding quote whore Fast Freddy Topel exclaimed “It’s breathless”, and praised it for being so uncommercial. My impression from the trailer is that it’s biting off much more that it can chew, and will be pretentious as hell. Darren Aronofsky covered similar territory with The Fountain, albeit on a much smaller scale. It does have its moments, but ultimately plays out as a noble failure.

    Cloud Atlas is currently hovering at 59% positive at http://www.rottentomatoes.com. I’ll be surprised if it exceeds $70 million in its theatrical run.

16. 

    Griff

    October 25th, 2012 at 8:20 pm

    well, it’s not playing where I live at all, I’m dead serious

    I actually called the theater and the guy flat out said that they didn’t think enough people cared about it, can you believe that shit? I’ve never seen anything like that happen before, how can the theaters choose not play it at all?

17. 

    Griff

    October 25th, 2012 at 8:21 pm

    so I guess it’ll have to be blu ray for me

18. 

    RRA

    October 25th, 2012 at 8:51 pm

    Larry – you don’t understand. CLOUD ATLAS isn’t a WB movie as much as a big budget indie movie that WB picked up for distribution.

    On a bigger scale this is like Lionsgate with DREDD. Now you the studio, are you gonna spend all your ad money and wide screens on such a pick-up or do you spend the budget on your in-house productions, your big budget spectacles that if they bomb, you the suit might lose your job?

    WB in the end I’m sure won’t lose much on CLOUD ATLAS. (If they were, they would’ve widely released this son of a bitch in 4000 screens or whatever.) The indie funders, well they’re gonna fucked.

    Then again, you know what guys? I hate this idea I’m reading that we’re grading whether it was smart or not that a fortune was spent on CLOUD ATLAS and whether mainstream audiences would bite or not. That’s the wrong way to look at things.

    Whether it’ll be good or not who knows, but CLOUD ATLAS was a movie the Wachowskis and others had been trying to make for years, had their own little epic saga in just getting funding. But it got made, and despite the fortune spent on it, it does look like a personalized, challenging movie that isn’t a blockbuster meant to please the whole family or whatever.

    IT GOT MADE. That’s the victory. Sometimes we forget that so many coulda-been great or good movies never got made, including the interesting ones that you can’t tell if it woulda been good or not.

19. 

    Gabe T.

    October 25th, 2012 at 10:36 pm

    I completely stand by my blurb in this trailer, not only because it is my first ever trailer blurb, but because this movie is INCREDIBLE.

20. 

    Mouth

    October 25th, 2012 at 10:55 pm

    Gabe coming straight outta IndieWire with a loose cannon. . .

    Congratulations.

21. 

    Amazing Larry

    October 26th, 2012 at 1:11 am

    @RRA: While I appreciate your admiration of the Wachowski SIBLINGS (yes, let’s now call ’em that, for Lana’s sake) and their passion for this dream project, I cannot roll with you on this one, [dude]. This isn’t like Michael Cimino with Heaven’s Gate or Francis Ford Coppola with Apocalypse Now (one failed; one passed, and endured). The *only* thing they have in their CV to date to indicate they could pull this off is V For Vendetta, and they didn’t direct that one.

    As co-directors, they have no artistic merit. Which brings me back to Aronofsky and The Fountain. That particular effort calls to mind something Robert F. Kennedy once stated: “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly”. Which is only half-correct. I would’ve stated it as “Those who achieve greatly have often first tasted the failure of achieving greatness” (i.e., Vern). Aronofsky followed The Fountain with The Wrestler and Black Swan. I’m not sure if Noah will continue his winning streak, but my point is: the Wachowskis have NEVER been poised for the level of greatness they are clearly aiming for with Cloud Atlas. Whoever funded this movie deserves first place in the Darwin Awards for 2012.

    That said, I hope Scott Adkins figures more prominently in Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning (and Zero Dark Thirty as well) than he did in The Expendables 2. He’s a wicked good martial artist who’s also got the acting chops (Undisputed 3 made that clear) to take him to the next level. Wake the FUCK UP, suits!… Put him front & center in a high-profile action movie.

22. 

    Andreas

    October 26th, 2012 at 1:37 am

    Damn, I’m surrounded by people whose opinion and knowledge I respect that keep telling me DAY OF RECKONING is a great movie while for me it was a boring mess.

    I couldn’t get over the terrible writing, acting and pacing, the unearned self-importance, the endless dialogue scenes, the complete creative concept of making this into an »arthouse action film« without the necessary knowledge and ressources to even make it into a decent »regular action film« or having any »arthouse ideas« beyond pretentious clichés. Trying to put it in the same category as some masterpieces just makes the quality gap even more obvious.

    Vern said in another review that watching the Platinum Dunes remakes is like watching somebody trying to make a watch who hasn’t any knowledge about the mechanism, who just knows a watch from the look at the surface. I would argue that DAY OF RECKONING falls into the same category.

23. 

    Newbs

    October 26th, 2012 at 3:20 am

    Just watched Day of Reckoning. Fuck yes, man. Loved it.

24. 

    marlow

    October 26th, 2012 at 3:42 am

    I love it when you sit down to watch a film and the first five minutes sells the entire thing. I was down with wherever this movie was going to take me from go.

    Then by the time Dolph pops up I was wondering what the fuck was going on, but in that intrigued and giddy way. It’s a nice feeling that I just dont get enough and never expected from UNIVERSAL SOLDIER – I THINK IT’S PART 5 OR 6 BUT DUDE YOU SHOULD WATCH IT.

25. 

    Mouth

    October 26th, 2012 at 5:35 am

    Larry, you’re Being Ellis.

    Don’t judge shit based on your reaction to a trailer. Don’t come at us with RottenTomatoes. Don’t gameplan budgets & revenues like that proves your point. Don’t predict & announce failure for a movie that is clearly Striving for Excellence.

26. 

    Bender

    October 26th, 2012 at 6:55 am

    Yeah I think I’m gonna be disappointed with Day of Reckoning. Vern’s comments don’t encourage me.

    I guess I was really looking forward to a continuation of he story from Regeneration. I don’t have anything against Adkins but was wanting JCVD to really take it to the next level. Especially either sort of ambiguous ending with Regeneration. It really could have gone a lot of places from there, and it sounds like he’s hardly in this one.

    And the reviews do sound like this is a bit of mess. Action/horror doesn’t fill me with confidence either. I can’t really remember a movie that executed that combination well. Oh well, I’ll still see it, and either way I’ll still love Regeneration

27. 

    RRA

    October 26th, 2012 at 7:12 am

    Larry – I wil have to agree with Mouth here, I find the entire premise of your qualm very questionable, to say the least.

    What did Wachowskis do with BOUND that showed that they could make a hit kung-fi sci-fi movie? I’m reminded of that anecdote that the Wachowkis only got their funding for BOUND from Dino DeLaurentiis after they mentioned the leads are lesbians, which apparently perked his interests up, to say the least.

    better yet, I was just ranting about him the other night: John Carpenter.

    You know what his first movie was? DARK STAR, a comedy. (A quite good one actually.) If he came to you saying he wanted to make ASSAULT ON PRECICNT 13, an action movie, or a horror movie* like HALLOWEEN, would you tell him no John, sorry buddy but you haven’t shown that you can do action or horror? Better yet years later when Carpenter was hired to direct STARMAN, an adult romance version of E.T. basically, would you shit on that hiring because he hadn’t proven he could do a chick flick yet?

    Movies are always risks. Sometimes banking on the unknown does pay off. Sometimes it backfires sectacularly. I mean I do remember the Internet back in the late 1990s openly wondering why New Line Cinema had faith in that BRAIN DEAD/THE FRIGHTENERS/HEAVENLY CREATURES Peter Jackson dude to do not just a movie, or two, but a trilogy of heavy FX action/adventure movies based off some of the most well read fantasy book series ever?

    *=I know that’s not how HALLOWEEN got produced, but that isn’t the point, I’m just using it as a metaphor.

28. 

    Mr. Majestyk

    October 26th, 2012 at 7:56 am

    Yeah, I don’t buy “These filmmakers have not submitted the proper paperwork to obtain a Striving For Excellence permit” as a legitimate argument. If SPEED RACER doesn’t prepare you for some bizarre, heretofore undiscovered mutant strain of greatness, I don’t know what will.

29. 

    Franchise Fred Topel

    October 26th, 2012 at 10:29 am

    As Franchise Fred it’s an honor to be quoted on part 4/6 of a series. This trailer still doesn’t capture the magnitude of how awesome the action in this movie is though. I guess that’s good because it’ll surprise people.

30. 

    clubside

    October 26th, 2012 at 10:46 am

    Not really a good comparison RRA given that Dark Star was birthed as a student film with Dan O’Bannon and only later became a theatrical release. While technically it’s Carpenter’s first, it’s not like he entered the scene that way, like a lot of early ’70s directors, it was what he was able to show technically that got him a gig, not a genre. Also this was the so-called American Auteur time following the success of Easy Rider that allowed first-timers and “green” writer-directors like Lucas, Coppola and Carpenter to basically “own” a film rather than the studios which were still reeling from the collapse of the star-studio system.

31. 

    Bad Seed

    October 26th, 2012 at 11:02 am

    As someone who Read CLOUD ATLAS I’m psyched for the film. Yes, it’ll be audacious. Yes, not everything will work. But the sum, I hope, will be not just a film, but an experience that lives on, as Charlie Jane over at io9 puts it, “when you’re showering the next day.” I love films that take up permanent residence in the mind, that insist on sticking to the cranium no matter how much you shake your head. I expect, based on what I’ve read, that CLOUD ATLAS will do just that. I’m all about supporting this film to give filmmakers who are eager to push the bounds of the medium a little breathing room. I mean, how great is it that DAY OF RECKONING wants to be an art house action horror fever dream, and CLOUD ATLAS has the balls to breakdown an already complicated novel’s structure and reconstruct it to translate the story to a visual medium?

    My answer? Very great. I get anyone who feels like these may be pretentious, but I think we forget how gutsy these kind of chances can be for an artist. This isn’t to say you have to like it, but at least give it a shot. And when you do decide it isn’t for you remember; criticism, when constructive, is almost as valuable as a nervy work of art.

    I think we’re in for some good conversations in the coming weeks.

32. 

    Mr. Majestyk

    October 26th, 2012 at 11:05 am

    The point is, it’s not our job to say who has the right to strive for excellence. If any filmmaker, even one whose past work I’ve hated, wants to try something crazy ambitious and different, risking falling flat on his face and pissing off his corporate overlords in the process, I’m gonna support that filmmaker, even if I don’t go see the movie because it doesn’t look like my thing. Yeah, CLOUD ATLAS is probably gonna flop. Who. Gives. A. Fuck. I didn’t invest in the goddamn thing. It’s not my problem how much money it makes. I don’t comment every day on a website about spreadsheets and profit margins. All I care about is the movie. And since the Wachowskis (and Twyker, let’s not forget about him) are some fearless, insane, legitimately weird motherfuckers (a rare commodity in this world where directors are becoming less iconoclastic and more boring every day), even if it’s a train wreck, it’s gonna be a train wreck worth seeing. Like that one in THE FUGITIVE, not that one in SUPER 8 that looked like a screensaver.

33. 

    Franchise Fred Topel

    October 26th, 2012 at 11:10 am

    I also gave them a quote about Van Dammage and Lundrenergy but I guess they didn’t have the vision to use it. I thought it was time to give Dolph his own word. Van Damme has had Van Dammage for 20 years.

    I’ve also been joking about CLOUD ATLAS and Cloud Fatlas. I think it’s hilarious.

34. 

    Vern

    October 26th, 2012 at 12:37 pm

    I thought Larry was going for a “all of their movies suck except V For Vendetta… yeah, that’s right, that means I don’t like The Matrix, DID I BLOW YOUR MIND?” type of angle there, not a “their previous works don’t prepare them for this ambitious of a movie.” Obviously I disagree with him with every fiber of my being, but I let him get away with it because he’s Amazing.

35. 

    Cassidy

    October 26th, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    Man… Just watched UniSol 5 or whatever number it is. I don’t even know how to describe it. My best attempt is that it’s the Apocalypse Now of low budget action sequels. That’s not a bad thing. It kept me continuously guessing and even though I could guess at some of it, I certainly didn’t expect a lot of things in it. And yes, that trailer is EXACTLY the same tone as the entire movie. I’m looking forward to Vern’s full review.

    One thing I will say is that I don’t think this movie would exist except as what it exactly is: The nth sequel in a lower than mainstream budget movie series. If this was a standalone movie, I don’t know who would agree to fund something like this. If this was standalone, it would also require some measure of screen time to explain stuff. If this was a series anyone cared about “maintaining” what was in the original movie because it was a big hit, it wouldn’t have happened. They basically threw the keys to the car to John Hyams on the strength of what he had done before and said “go crazy” and he did.

36. 

    Cassidy

    October 26th, 2012 at 12:57 pm

    I have to also add. This is probably the one of the few movies I can think of that makes you feel how painful each and every cut of a knife or machete is even if the characters don’t.

37. 

    Stu

    October 26th, 2012 at 2:51 pm

    So I saw SKYFALL today. MILD SPOILERS from this point forward

    Really enjoyed it.

    The action’s done well, very clear and coherent, even when a number of the sequences were happening in very dark locations. The opening scenes motorbike chase does feel a little like someone trying to outdo a Bourne movie vehicle chase, but it’s done well. Bardem’s great as the villain. He’s not Anton Chigur type level of scary, but he’s definitely a charismatic and sadistic motherfucker, and has a few twists to him other Bond main villains haven’t had. The movie’s not quite the throwback the promotion suggests, though. It’s kinda somber for a lot of it, and the big villain scheme is just a very personal vendetta against MI6, and there’s a lot of focus on M and Bond’s relationship, which is really well done overall. By the end though, they’ve re-introduced several element that make the film come across like prequel to the classic ones in a way. One of which is Ben Wishaw as Q. He’s pretty good in this, playing a geek, but not in the typical socially awkward hollywood type of way, more the “I’m really smart and I know it” way, having good chemistry with Craing and thankfully he wasn’t relegated to just one scene giving Bond some admittedly no-frills type of gadgets, as he appears later and acts as support for Bond during a sequence that’s kind of like 24. There is some fanservice though as we do get a classic Aston Martin later on with ejector seat and machine gun features, and the final scene is pretty much the Bond equivalent of the final scene of Batman Begins. Craig’s still great as Bond, and the film actually delves into his past a bit and pretty firmly discredits the idea of his Bond just being some guy inheriting the name from previous 007s, and works in some stuff from the books into that, and overall seems to be kind of capping off the post-reboot era and perhaps allowing for the series to have a bit more fun going forward.

    Oh, it’s also as far as I know the first Bond film where someone says “fuck”.

38. 

    Mouth

    October 26th, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    UNISOL: D.O.R.:

    It’s weird. It’s a nightmare. It’s flawed. It’s perfect. I love this movie.

    John Hyams gets his APOCALYPSE NOW on.

    Can’t wait for the 3D cinema experience and for the full review so I can annoy Vern with my theories on the meta-ness of DAY OF RECKONING — note its narrative reliance on implanted, false memories vis-à-vis the history of the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER series itself [a series full of false memories & plot threads killed & discarded (though the shadow of those memories & UNISOL conventions lingers) by the subsequent movies].

39. 

    Mouth

    October 26th, 2012 at 9:46 pm

    Franchise Fred, good review, man. But shouldn’t it be “Lundgrenergy (™Fred Topel)”?

    Others should thank you for that review, too, because you make an excellent point about the need to see this on demand or eventually on the disc for the unrated version. The 3D sounds like it’ll be great, and I’ll certainly be seeing it that way, but that’s lousy that it’ll probably be a reduced version to achieve an R rating, with slightly less gore. Fucking compromise.

40. 

    Mr. Majestyk

    October 27th, 2012 at 9:39 am

    I have seen CLOUD ATLAS and it was definitely worth the three hours and $15.50 including Fandango surcharge. Anyone familiar with its premise could tell that it’s an ambitious undertaking, but it’s also a surprisingly human one. Its basic thesis, that people have had to deal with the same struggles throughout history and will continue to do so until something drastic changes, is not a particularly fresh one, but I was less interested in what the movie was saying than how it was saying it. By cutting from one story to the next, it seems to be commenting on the universality of stories and story structure, particularly film pacing, so that an action beat from one story could follow a suspense beat from another story and still maintain the same momentum. It can be dizzying at first but you just half to relax and enjoy each story on its own terms and not be too hung up on finding the connections between them. That’s for ruminating on later. The viewing experience is for in-the-moment pleasures of filmatic storytelling. Doomed forbidden love. Uplifting comedic escapes and turnarounds. Post-apocalyptic cannibal action. Shaft-like Keith David shooting it out on the streets of 70s San Fransisco with a snubnose .38. Awesome sci-fi laser battles and high-flying derring-do. Plus you get to see Tom Hanks kill a bunch of people as various characters. Not the direction I thought they’d go in for POLAR EXPRESS 2 but I approve.

    All in all I’d describe it as the pulp TREE OF LIFE. It never hits the high, ringing pitch of specific truth that ToL does, but it also doesn’t turn into a herpes medication commercial at the end so I think I liked CLOUD ATLAS better.

41. 

    Mr. Majestyk

    October 27th, 2012 at 9:40 am

    “Half?” Really, brain?

42. 

    Griff

    October 27th, 2012 at 11:40 am

    well for me personally, I think blu ray would probably better anyway because at almost 3 hours long I’d have to take a whizz at some point and I’d hate to miss anything important because I think I’d get REALLY confused, like “whoa, when we did go from the future to the 70’s?”

43. 

    Mr. Majestyk

    October 27th, 2012 at 11:57 am

    I’m sorta the opposite. I never want to watch long movies at home because I rarely have three hours to spare at the end of the night, which is when I normally watch movies. That’s one of the reason why I made it a point to see CLOUD ATLAS in the theater, because I knew that I’d keep putting it off and putting it off if I waited for DVD. Also, I knew it would be less likely for my attention to wander when the movie is 30 feet tall and I paid a lot of money to see it.

    It’s not really that confusing, though, Griff. It introduces all of the timelines in the first few minutes, so unless you have a bladder the size of a thimble you could probably last that long. The connections between the stories are more subliminal than plot-oriented so there are plenty of points where you could take a bathroom break and not miss much. It’s not really about how the stories connect but how they’re all kind of the same story in different contexts.

44. 

    Charles

    October 27th, 2012 at 12:12 pm

    Wow, that trailer is awesome. I have been looking forward to this film because of how much I like REGENERATION, but none of the trailers for this film have got me as excited for it as this one. Hyams did a great job, which is not surprising but is interesting because of something Joe Dante said over at trailersfromhell.com. On the commentary for the trailer to his film HOLES Joe Dante (the king of the trailer) says that he does not cut trailers for his own films because he believes that film makers tend to be too afraid of spoiling their own film so they leave out to much of the good stuff and it hurts the trailer. This trailer for DAY OF RECKONING is hands down the best I have seen yet, but as Fred pointed out he feels that it is not even a good representation of the quality of action in the film. I can’t wait to check it out and judge for myself.

    As a side note, Dante also briefly talks about how he believes 3D films like HOLES (and DAY OF RECKONING) that are not getting the theatrical releases they deserve should find new life with the rise of 3D televisions on the horizon. He thinks that there will be such a demand for 3D programing that films like HOLES & RECKONING will be end up being seen in 3D the way they are meant to be viewed as the technology becomes more prevalent.

    PS: Congrats to Franchise Fred for making the trailer.

45. 

    Chitown

    October 27th, 2012 at 1:15 pm

    I just watched this movie on demand and I must say it is a big steaming pile of shit. It’s nothing like the last one. I’ll just say that Van Damme is barely even in this movie. I thought that wouldn’t matter because I like Adkins a lot, but this movie makes zero sense. John Hyams does make the movie look good, it actually looks like it was made for a budget higher then it actually was. With that said, the story is terrible. The action is ok, but nothing spectacular. After the last one I was thinking that Hyams might be in the category of Isaac Florentine as a director who can work with low budgets and deliver some great action. After this and that terrible movie Dragon Eyes, I’m thinking maybe Isaac Florentine stands alone in that category right now.

46. 

    Franchise Fred Topel

    October 27th, 2012 at 1:52 pm

    Majestyk, so glad you had the same visceral reaction to CLOUD ATLAS. I also found the intercutting, a technique I usually hate, kept the pace breathtaking for a good two hours after the set up. Pure storytelling alone it’s great. And what’s so hard to grasp about watching a movie with six stories in six different genres?

    Chitown, correct, DOR is different from REGENERATION.

47. 

    Franchise Fred Topel

    October 27th, 2012 at 1:54 pm

    I also wish I could go back and tell Hanks and Wachowski Starship that we’re discussing their film in the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER thread!

48. 

    Charles

    October 27th, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    Fred, how do you know I am not Tom Hanks?!?!?!

    SPOILER….. I am not Tom Hanks, but you never know.

49. 

    Mr. Majestyk

    October 27th, 2012 at 3:22 pm

    Deep down inside, aren’t we all Tom Hanks?

    (Answer: No. No, we are not. Only Tom Hanks is.)

50. 

    Anaru

    October 27th, 2012 at 5:27 pm

    Fuck Cloud Atlas – that shit’s just Tree Of Life for the Oprah’s Book Club crowd. Shallow dumb shit that thinks it’s smart from the masters of shallow dumb shit that thinks it’s smart.

    With that out of the way…

    UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: LAME GENERIC SUBTITLE SO I’LL NEVER CONVINCE ANYONE TO SEE IT is fucking great!!!

    Holy shit it’s like David Lynch made a Universal Soldier movie. I know the “David Lynch” thing is a reviewing cliche, amost as bad as putting “…on acid” in your review, but in this case that I’m being totally literal.

    It’s dark and mysterious and dreamlike and eerie and it has fuckloads of beefy DTV guys beating and shooting and axe chopping the shit out of each other and those two things fit together for some reason.

    I liked the last one for being better than it has any right to be, but I just straight up like this one. No “for a DTV” qualifiers or excuses, it’s just straight up a damn good movie. I feel like it’s destined to be a little secret amongst VERN readers though because who the fuck else is going to check out UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 12 and expect it to be this good.

    Anaru predicts: The next movie Hyams signs on for will be a big time Hollywood deal, if that hasn’t already happened.

51. 

    Anaru

    October 27th, 2012 at 5:34 pm

    Oh and I forgot to say: EPILEPSY WARNING for serious

52. 

    The Original... Paul

    October 27th, 2012 at 5:52 pm

    Of the four Wachowski movies I’ve seen that they’ve been creatively involved in, I’d class two as “great”, one as “ok”, and one as “awful”. So what I’m saying is they could go either way for me.

    Saying how different “Day of Reckoning” is from “Regeneration” might be taken negatively (and given what Chitown and others have written, apparently it is).

    In other unrelated news…

    I just visited Aberfest (Welsh horror festival) and saw premieres of two movies that apparently aren’t coming out until 2013. Chatted with the director of one of them, it was freakin’ awesome. I’ll put reviews up in the forum when I’m a little less tired. Both films were good and I want to do them justice.

53. 

    ShootMcKay

    October 27th, 2012 at 6:11 pm

    I´m more like Otm Shank, than Tom Hanks.

54. 

    Pike Bishop

    October 28th, 2012 at 2:27 am

    Fuck Cloud Atlas.
    Thanks Anaru.What has this Cloud Atlas Crap,to do in a UniSol Thread.
    And just for the Record.I hate the Wachowkies,Tykwer and Hanks from the bottom of my Heart.

55. 

    Griff

    October 28th, 2012 at 2:30 am

    how can you hate Tom Hanks? :(

56. 

    Franchise Fred Topel

    October 28th, 2012 at 3:50 am

    Mouth, good catch. We’ve fixed it. I can’t believe I made a typo in the word I myself tried to coin.

    Shoot, Otm Shank has nothing to do with Tom Hanks. He’s India’s answer to Brian Denehy.

    I don’t begrudge anyone not liking UNISOL 4/6. I’m just disappointed any criticism I’ve heard is dismissive. But that’s always my heartbreak with negative criticism.

    Has CLOUD ATLAS made any of you feel like Cloud Fatlas?

57. 

    Pike Bishop

    October 28th, 2012 at 4:43 am

    @ Griff

    Well,why not ? He is not Lee Marvin,Robert Mitchum or Clint Eastwood.
    He is Forrest Gump.

58. 

    Griff

    October 28th, 2012 at 5:13 am

    so you only like actors who are “badass”? Dustin Hoffman? fuck that guy, Philip Seymour Hoffman? who needs him…

    of course that’s not even mentioning the fact that Tom Hanks played a friggin’ soldier during WW2

    seriously though man, I don’t get it, so you don’t like Forrest Gump, why does that make everything Tom Hanks has done bad? what about fucking BIG man? if you don’t like that movie you have no soul

59. 

    Griff

    October 28th, 2012 at 5:14 am

    or at the very fucking least, what about Bachelor Party? a man who can not appreciate Bachelor Party at the very least is not a man I want to know

60. 

    Amazing Larry

    October 28th, 2012 at 5:53 am

    @Griff: How can you hate Tom Hanks? You make it sound [read] like it’s not even possible.

    OK, let’s begin with the basics (employing arbitrary examples). To whit… Vern’s Theory Of Badass Juxtaposition:

    He’s the friendly, punctual UPS driver… who also does volunteer work at the local animal hospital, helping to nurse stray kittens back to health.

    He’s the accountant living next door in your suburb… who also moonlights as the neighborhood watch guy.

    He’s the valiant American WWII soldier… who avoids killing dirty Huns in battle because it would disqualify him from coaching Little League Baseball back home.

    So, to reiterate… how can you hate Tom Hanks? You CAN’T, unless you’re thoroughly schooled in the ways of Nietzsche, Sun Tzu, and the guy who played Binky in Shakes The Clown. His whole fucking acting CV is designed to make you like & admire him for his infallible nobility.

    But, like a big dump taken by Napoleon’s right-hand man Michel Ney on the side of the road traveling back from Moscow… the shit’s epic but gettin’ old, and it’s in retreat.

    Seriously, hoss… at this point he’s too good for his own good. If that’s not reason enough to hate him, I don’t know what is.

61. 

    Amazing Larry

    October 28th, 2012 at 6:08 am

    @Franchise Fred Topel: Your post prompted the memory of a quote written by Pauline Kael about Brian Dennehy: “He’s the kind of actor John Wayne would’ve been, had he been an actor”.

    Not sure if this plays into the thespian stylings of Otm Shank… just throwin’ it out there.

62. 

    Pike Bishop

    October 28th, 2012 at 6:31 am

    I love Dustin Hoffman and Philip Seymour Hoffman.What have they got to do with Tom Hanks ?
    Dont get it.I dont like Schwarzenegger too.I guess,you would call him a Badass.
    There are Faces,when i catch them on TV,i have to switch the Channel.Hanks,Bill Murray and some others.
    I just can´t stand their acting.

63. 

    RBatty024

    October 28th, 2012 at 8:25 am

    Let me offer up Road to Perdition as evidence of Tom Hanks’s ability to play a badass. Check out the scene where he kills off his father figure, if you don’t believe me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZphC0_XpDp4&feature=relmfu

    Also, I don’t find anything disingenuous about Tom Hanks’s schtick. He just strikes me as a genuinely nice guy.

64. 

    Mr. Majestyk

    October 28th, 2012 at 9:05 am

    I’m sorry to have stirred up this hornets nest of butthurt, fellas. I haven’t seen US: DoR yet so I don’t have anything to say about it besides the obvious (the obvious being it looks awesome). I was just sort of treating this like a sci-fi-action potpouri thread. I’m not gonna try to defend CLOUD ATLAS, because what’s the point when there is rock-solid logic afoot like Tom Hanks is not Lee Marvin (he’s not, I agree) but he is Napolean’s dump. But I would like to point out that the two people who saw CLOUD ATLAS liked it, and all the people who didn’t didn’t. I’m sure that math adds up somehow.

65. 

    CJ Holden

    October 28th, 2012 at 9:20 am

    Sorry, I have to say it, but am I the only one who is annoyed by the constant autostart of the trailer? And it’s so powerful that when you press stop once, it just starts again a few seconds later!

66. 

    Charles

    October 28th, 2012 at 9:26 am

    I watched RECKONING on in-demand last night, and loved it. I will wait for the official thread to go into greater detail, but the film is unlike any other marital arts action film I have ever seen. Hyams steers the Universal Soldier franchise in an unexpected and bold direction, and delivers a film that feels almost like a “Giallo” with its unflinchingly brutal violence and often unsettling tone and visuals. The action in the film is stunning and while it is not as plentiful as the action in THE RAID it is on par in quality and brutality. Hyams direction is subtle and confident, and this may be his best film yet.

    I am puzzled by the negative responses to the film. It is an ambitious departure from your traditional action film in narrative and tone, but never boring. It is often intentionally confusing, but they connect all the dots in the end and everything is explained. I am not trying to discredit the opinion of anyone that did not like the film, I just feel bad that they did have the same experience I did. It really is an excellent film, and I desperately want to see it in 3D in a theater.

67. 

    Pike Bishop

    October 28th, 2012 at 9:55 am

    From all i heard,DOR is not popular with those who loved the Emmerich.And that is a good Sign,if you ask me.
    The Difference between Hyams and Emmerich,is like the Difference between a Pitbull and a Golden Retriver.
    So i have high Hopes,and cant wait forVerns Review and for the Movie,of course.

    B.T.W. I have big Problems,loading youre Site.All others work Perfect.

68. 

    renfield

    October 28th, 2012 at 11:01 am

    I don’t like this whole “you HAVE to like Tom Hanks” idea. I remember when some people were up in arms about PATCH ADAMS being a good movie, the phrase “If you don’t like it, you don’t have a soul” was bandied about quite a bit. But we all know PATCH ADAMS was a repugnant piece of shit. That said, I do really like Tom Hanks and can see why he’s the sort of dude you associate with universal appeal.

    CLOUD ATLAS looks pretty tedious to me, so add my vote to Majestyk’s tally of one of the naysayers who hasn’t seen it…

69. 

    CJ Holden

    October 28th, 2012 at 11:02 am

    fuck the whole I-Don’tLike-Tom-Hanks thing. There are people on here who claim to hate Tom TYKWER!

70. 

    clubside

    October 28th, 2012 at 11:10 am

    “Uh oh, it’s Mr. Laughs!”

    What problems are you having with the site, Pike?

    And CJ, blame the auto-play (and annoying watermark) on the fucking genius who decided to release the trailer on Yahoo rather than a respectable site. However, I don’t get an auto-play in any of the browsers I test the site in, so what is your setup?

    “That’s a waste of some good fat.”

71. 

    Pike Bishop

    October 28th, 2012 at 12:15 pm

    It just need endless time to load.I have that Problem since yesterday,only with this Side.
    So i just want to know if anyone else got the same Trouble.

72. 

    Anaru

    October 28th, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    Constant autoplay here on Firefox

73. 

    clubside

    October 28th, 2012 at 3:24 pm

    Sorry about that guys, I’d assume Vern grabbed the embed link straight from Yahoo which set autoplay to true. Since Chrome and iOS ignore that and I use Flash Block in Firefox I never saw it. Hopefully changing the flashvar has fixed it for those suffering.

    Pike, we do occasionally have performance issues with hosting but no more than once a day, I usually get page loads between one and four seconds which is longer than it should be but not heinous. Our host is in the Mid-West. I’m planning on testing a service which will cache and serve the site from various locations around the world but won’t have time to get to that until after I’ve finished the Timeline.

74. 

    CJ Holden

    October 28th, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    Oh cool, I didn’t even know that you were able to change that. I was just bitching about it in general, not complaining about the websight or anybody associated with the making of it.

75. 

    HT

    October 28th, 2012 at 4:19 pm

    DAY OF RECKONING was amazing. Instead of making a boring, by-the-numbers sequel, Hyams decided to make a film that’s like a cross between APOCALYPSE NOW and THE TERMINATOR. Minimalistic, hard-edged, introspective and driven by a pulsing soundtrack.

    I didn’t mind that Van Damme or Lundgren weren’t in this much, because it was a Scott Adkins joint through and through. And he carries the movie well.

    Although REGENERATION should have been a sign of things to come, I’m still amazed that Hyams took a z-tier Emmerich started action franchise, and turned its fourth film into a personal, character driven gritty thriller that feels like it could have been made in the 70’s. No explanation of any franchise “mythology”, or forced romance, or other needless exposition – just “fuck you, let’s go and keep up”. And while it was undoubtedly low-budget, it didn’t look like direct-to-video. Camera work, lighting, the music, action choreography were all top-notch. They worked with little, but the film just radiates craftsmanship.

    If this had been a theatrical release, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. I’ve seen far shittier looking (and definitely written and directed) films this year.

    A surprise hit of the year for me.

76. 

    Griff

    October 28th, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    I’m using Chrome and no autoplay for me

77. 

    Philip

    October 29th, 2012 at 1:09 am

    CLOUD ATLAS is absolutely fucking incredible. for the record.

78. 

    Pike Bishop

    October 29th, 2012 at 2:41 am

    Thanks for your answers Clubside.Everything works perfect again.

79. 

    Pike Bishop

    October 29th, 2012 at 2:44 am

    To those who already seen it.Is it true Roy Jones JR. is in it?

80. 

    anaru

    October 29th, 2012 at 3:39 am

    

81. 

    Pike Bishop

    October 29th, 2012 at 5:44 am

    Great ! Thanks !

82. 

    CaptainTass

    October 29th, 2012 at 5:45 am

    Pike…RJJ is indeed in it. I watched it last night and said to my wife “Hey, that’s Roy Jones!” (I didn’t realize it was him until he started punching…then I knew) SPOILER***** He gets brutally pwned, though. I mean, he goes out like a jerk. I was like “Why they gotta punk Roy so hard???”

83. 

    Stu

    October 29th, 2012 at 9:29 am

    New RED BAND HANSEL AND GRETEL trailer:
    http://uk.ign.com/videos/2012/10/29/hansel-and-gretel-witch-hunters-red-band-trailer
    Looks like intentionally stupid R-Rated fun!

84. 

    clubside

    October 29th, 2012 at 11:29 am

    A little treat has been added to the site menu, under Home check for a blast from the past near The Archives.

85. 

    HT

    October 29th, 2012 at 11:32 am

    Man, Van Damme has a perpetual “I’m way too tired of this shit” look on his face. In every promo photo and in the movie.

    I really wonder if he’s going to burn himself to the ground still trying to be the martial arts star, or if he’s going to ease off from the action films – and maybe acting – entirely. In a few of the recent films he’s done, despite his headlining status, he’s basically done a cameo at best.

    And whatever happened to that real MMA fight he was going to do? In that reality show (which was done around the production of Assassination Games) he did, he was really keen on following through with it and make it happen. Despite not being in the best shape of his life anymore. It’s been a long while now, and I haven’t heard anything about it.

86. 

    CJ Holden

    October 29th, 2012 at 11:36 am

    That April Fool’s blog still makes me laugh after all these years. So many hilarious details.