Universal Soldier is a great action movie and a fun movie, Universal Solider: The Return isn't has good as the first but it is defiantly entertaining if you switch off your mind. Universal Soldier II is a unofficial sequel which was shot back to back with Universal Solider III; Unfinished Bussinss and was made for television. Univeral Soldier II and III doesn't star the muscles from Brussels Jean Claude Van-Damme has the main character Luc Dexeraux but instead Matt Battaglia, his performance isn't as good as Van Damme's but he does an okay job at portraying the emotionless UniSol. The acting from the other actors are okay, being a TV movie you can't expect Grade A acting. Then again some action movies don't have Grade A acting since it's the action most people want to see. One thing that makes Universal Soldier II Ches is the fact that it does have a huge amount of unnecessary zoom in shots and unnecessary slow motion scenes, plus the music they play doesn't really go with what's happening. They play the song "Spirt in the Sky" while a group of soldiers meet up, the action and fighting isn't has good as the first but I guess since it was a made for TV movie they didn't have a big budget for big action scenes.

The film starts off right where the first film ended with Luc and Scott fighting outside his home, the next day Luc is taking a bath in ice to cool his body temperature down. That night a group of people working on the Univeral Soldier activate a device in Luc's body which will make him return to them. In the morning Veronica and Luc's parents discover that he's missing, Veronica then goes to find him before something happens. Luc is taken by the military and reused in the Universal Soldier programme, meanwhile Veronica infiltrates the compound and finds that Luc's brother Eric has been kept in storage. She breaks him out and they sneak into a van. Luc and the other UniSols go into the van and are transported to there location, Eric and Veronica are soon found out. Luc sees his brother and another memory makes him uncontrollable again, he helps Veronica and Eric out by attacking the guards. Luc and Veronica manage to escape from the vehicle but Eric gets caught by one of the Universal Soldiers, Luc and Veronica then try to rescue Eric and put a stop to the Universal Soldiers.

Univeral Soldier II: Brothers In Arms isn't has good as the first film or the official sequel but it is watchable and entertainingly cheesy in parts, it's worth a look.

Universal Soldier was a pretty good Van Damme.flick with Dolph Lundgren. That film would be one of Van Damme's biggest successes as far as vehicles he starred in. That they could not get him to be in this thing eight years after the original and where his star power was basically gone should have let the filmmakers know that this would be bad. It is also bad in the fact that the first film was an action movie, but the makers of this film did not get that memo. Virtually no action the entire first hour of the movie unless you call driving car and riding in train action sequences! Not sure how they roped Burt Reynolds into doing this, Busey though, yeah, he was made for movies like this!

The story, well it tries to pick up where the first movie left off; however, the fact that they show the fight from that one with two new guys takes you right out of the movie. Probably best just to omit that part...well, new soldiers are made, Gary Busey is crazed with power and the reporter is going to save her man and not clear her name! I am guessing that will occur in the sequel to this. Meanwhile, Burt Reynolds does a horrible Irish accent. This all leads up to a mediocre duel in a bar where the hero has no real trouble taking out the bad guys...

The lead here is quite bland and speaks in such a boring tone. I mean Van Damme did too, but it sounded less disinterested than this guy does! Gary Busey is just insane and adds a really nice scarf while Burt remains hidden through much of the film. Seriously, this film looks worse than some of the SyFy shark films made by Asylum!

So if you have come to see your favorite undead soldier return...look for the movie with Van Damme as there was another sequel starring him out the following year. If you wanna see action, probably best if you watched the original. If you wanna see a bizarre looking dude play guitar and our hero sing along...this is the film for you!!!

Well, oddly enough then I have actually never ever seen parts 2 and 3 of the "Universal Soldier" movies, but I have seen part 1 and all subsequent movies after the 3rd one. So as I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 1998 movie "Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms" here in 2021, of course I did so.

Now, of course I wasn't actually harboring much of any high hopes or expectations for writer Peter M. Lenkov and director Jeff Woolnough prequel, which I assume was a straight to video release as well. And why? Well, you take Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren out of the equation and add in unknown actors, the chances are not all that greatly in favor of the movie.

Sure, there were some established actors in the movie, but they were hardly suitable to substitute the likes of Van Damme and Lundgren, but then again, they weren't playing the parts of the universal soldiers. Now, I have no idea who Matt Battaglia (playing Luc Devreaux),nor am I familiar with Jeff Wincott (playing Eric Devreaux). The movie does have some familiar faces, with the likes of Gary Busey, Burt Reynolds, Barbara Gordon and Julian Richings on the cast list.

The storyline told in "Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms" was pretty straight forward. Now, it wasn't the most innovative of stories, nor was it the most well-thought through of stories, but it made for some passable, albeit mindless, action-packed entertainment.

Needless to say that "Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms", as a sequel, does have that usual sequel thing going on. Where it doesn't really live up to the things delivered by its predecessor. And that was the case for this 1998 movie as well. Of course it was. Sure, "Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms" was a watchable movie but it was hardly an outstanding or particularly memorable movie.

My rating of "Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms" lands on a less than mediocre four out of ten stars. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. And while it is a watchable movie, this is hardly a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.