We open with Colonel Luc Deveraux (Van Damme), the original Universal Soldier and his buxom Asian friend being chased down a river by what appear to be Universal Soldiers. They almost kill the two, then oh wait, it was just a field test. Deveraux we come to find is now part of a government funded company that designs the new level of Universal Soldiers. Why he would want to be involved in this (if you know anything about the original) is never explained and well beyond me.

It's after this flimsy set piece that the real story gets going. The United States government has cut the Universal Soldier's project budget and in the process angered SETH (the large artificial mainframe computer that controls the Universal Soldiers). Naturally he won't be shut down without a fight. So that means Van Damme has to go around and take all the new breed of Universal Soldiers out. Which sounds like a fun idea for an action movie and a take on a sequel, but that doesn't stop it from becoming stupid as hell.

For instance, one of the new Universal Soldiers is played by Bill Goldberg. Seems you can't go wrong casting a wrestler in an action movie. He's big, he's tough, right? Wrong. Van Damme doesn't seem to have a problem wiping the floor with him... once ... twice ... three times. The point here lost on me. Then there's the breaking of glass. A rudimentary part of any action movie, but someone involved must have a glass fetish. You have to see the fight scenes in particular. Let's not talk about how nobody cuts themselves or at the very least slips. Then to put the cherry on top of this train wreck, they have SETH (the computer) secure a human body for himself and how appropriate it is when they make the villain black (Michael Jai White). Nothing works better than a white good guy fighting a black bad guy it would seem. Potentially offensive and just downright lame. He's no replacement for Dolph, either.

Universal Soldier 2 is a lousy sequel. It's loud, it's dumb and it doesn't care. The original wasn't anything poetic, but it made a simple sort of sense with a science fiction element and it entertained on a basic level. The sequel doesn't. They do however keep the running time under ninety minutes and somehow found a way to squeeze in a strip club sequence. So give credit where credit is due.

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Choose from:
(1). negative
(2). positive...I think the answer is
(1).