Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning

Plot

John awakens from a coma to find that his wife and daughter were brutally murdered in a home invasion. With the help of FBI Agent Gorman, the still amnesiac John identifies the perpetrator as former Universal Soldier (UniSol) Luc Deveraux, now a wanted man. Gorman activates sleeper agent Magnus, one of the cloned Next Generation UniSols from Regeneration. Magnus reaches a brothel and kills all the women working there and most of the patrons, all men with exceptional physical resistance. His last adversary, a clone of UniSol Andrew Scott and Deveraux's former nemesis, negotiates Magnus and injects him with a serum that frees him from government control. Magnus is introduced to a separatist group led by Deveraux and Scott, who are taking in wayward UniSols to turn them against the government, thus establishing a new order ruled by UniSols.

Determined to find Deveraux, John receives a call from someone claiming to be his friend Isaac, urging the two to meet. At his house, he finds Isaac long dead and evidence of Isaac's involvement with the UniSol government program. A matchbox found on the scene leads John to a strip club. There, he is recognized and sent off by a stripper named Sarah, whom he cannot remember. Magnus injects John with Scott's serum, whereupon John hallucinates about Deveraux but retains his will. John follows Sarah to her apartment, where they are attacked by Magnus again. Though in the confrontation John loses some phalanges, they escape. Sarah tells John she remembers him working as a truck driver, living in a riverside cabin, and that the two were romantically involved.

Calling his own memories into question, John requests a meeting with Agent Gorman. He learns Deveraux was often seen at the docks from where John used to take shipments. John goes to the docks, inspects the last unshipped cargo and meets with local manager Ron Castellano, who plays hidden camera footage that shows John brutally murder Isaac.

As John and Sarah drive towards the cabin, they are once more intercepted by Magnus. Upon finally eliminating Magnus, John realizes he possesses superior strength, resistance and fighting abilities; his severed fingers have regrown in the meantime. John and Sarah reach the cabin to find it inhabited by an exact duplicate of John, who reveals himself as the original who had killed Isaac and been in contact with Sarah and Castellano in the past. The original John had been mind-controlled into hunting down Deveraux, but was turned by him and hired as a transporter and assassin for his organization, until he met Sarah and deserted Deveraux. He tries to kill Sarah but is shot dead by the other John, now suspecting himself to be a UniSol sleeper agent.

By the river, a rogue UniSol takes John to the separatists' underground headquarters. There, he is greeted by Dr. Su, a former scientist of the UniSol program, who reveals John had been synthetically created a few weeks earlier, therefore his family never existed. Dr. Su also says the missing shipment contains the hardware that will allow Deveraux to create clones. John accepts Su's offer to surgically sever his emotional bond with the fake memories of his family, but the pain and attachment to those memories drive John insane. He kills every UniSol in his path, culminating with Andrew Scott in a one-on-one confrontation. John then reaches Deveraux himself; in the ensuing fight, Deveraux eventually gains the upper hand. Realizing the cycle of sending clones of John against him is destined to repeat, and seeing John as a worthy successor, Deveraux allows John to kill him.

Later, John meets with Agent Gorman again. Gorman admits to his involvement with the UniSol program and that he had purposefully put an unaware John on Deveraux's trail. Gorman ascribes John's success to his familial attachment, as opposed to the patriotism implanted in his predecessors. John kills Gorman, then a clone of Gorman and three UniSols emerge from John's van. The clone leaves in Gorman's car, hinting that John has acquired the cloning equipment and taken over the separatist group, now determined to infiltrate the government which he holds responsible for his pain.

Production

In May 2010, it was announced that Van Damme and Lundgren would return for a fourth official installment. Universal Soldier: A New Dimension will be the first in the series to be filmed in 3-D. John Hyams also returned as director. Hyams has cited films like Apocalypse Now, The Manchurian Candidate, Chinatown, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers among others, as inspirations for the film.

In April 2012, it was announced that the film's subtitle was to be re-titled from A New Dimension to Day of Reckoning. When first submitted to the MPAA, the film received an NC-17 rating due to its violence. An edited R-rated version was released in theaters. The NC-17 director's cut has been released overseas.

Release

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning premiered on VOD on October 25, 2012 followed by a theatrical run starting November 30, 2012. The film premiered on HDNet Movies on November 28, 2012.

Box office

The film was released in Russia and Malaysia on October 4 and grossed $624,724. The film opened a week later in Ukraine and ended up grossing $31,349. It was released on November 30, 2012 in the United States in three screens, grossing $3,181 in its opening weekend, and as of the December 6, the film has grossed $4,928. It also opened on the same day in Turkey, finishing 8th with $75,919 for the weekend, as of the December 9, the film has grossed $138,232 in Turkey. The film was also released in the United Arab Emirates and as of the December 9 it has grossed $193,274. The worldwide total as of the December 12 is $992,507.

Critical reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 53% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 47 reviews; the rating average is 5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The mooted final installment in the long-running series is a hyper-violent, often grim throwback to action movies of yore – which will appeal to some audiences just as emphatically as it deters others".

Nick Antosca, writing in The Paris Review, wrote that Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning is "less an action film than a horror film" and concludes that it is his "favorite movie of last year the best movie of last year, I would argue." Film critic Matt Zoller Seitz praised the film for its "elegant, committed action direction" and stated that "it just radiates menace." He also went on to say that the film series "is a rare series that takes more creative risks as it goes along." Bilge Ebiri, writing for the website Vulture, also gave praises to the film, writing that with the intro being reminiscent of a Michael Haneke film, "the entire thing has a mesmeric, unreal quality, where things can turn on a dime, and often do." Overall, he stated that "if more action movies were like Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, the world would probably be a better place."