Like whoa, niggaz.
I was kinda expekting the usual, run of the mill quickie actioner. It turns out that the director John Hyams - son of Peter "Capricorn One" Hyams (this also means Van Damme now worked with both sr and jr Hyams, for the statheads) - had different ideas. Hyams - who also helmed the previous UniSol entry (Regeneration, which was also well received in fan circles) - decides he's not so much Ringo Lam, he's more of a David Cronenberg kind of guy. So what we get is...um...a psychological horror action film ? Yeah, shit sounds mad just from the description.
But anyway. You remember Emmerich's original UniSol ? Right, forget it ever happened. This is so far removed it might be a sequel in name only. Story goes that Deveraux (JCVD) and Scott (Lundgren) now run some sort of a cult for UniSols, trying to gather them around for a same cause. And the cause is world domination, because Deveraux is not a nice guy anymore - he's a Lecter-esque psycho with a penchant for brutality. After Deveraux's party home-jacks some guy's house (shooting his wife and kind point blank in a manner which made me almost look away), the guy - named John (JC's right hand man Scott Adkins, martial artist extraordinaire) - slips into comatose state. When he wakes up, he is trying to piece what happened, all while being chased for no apparent reason by a murderous UniSol called Magnus (Andrei "Pitbull" Arlovski, MMA fighter and Alex Ovechkin impersonator).
You can pretty much piece the rest from here, and there will be no prizes given for your effort. Still, this movie is a tremendous ride. I thought that The Raid:Redemption set new standards, but that film had some style aspects to it, like its close cousin Dredd. US:DOR goes down the more "verite" route, and just focuses on ridiculous violence and greatly choreographed fight set pieces. The violent bits, well, first 15-20 minutes will be a test for even the more grizzled kind like myself. After that, it's all gravy. And the fights, they're not as common as you might expekt (Hyams plays Cronenberg here, remember), but when they come, they are expertly staged and shot. None of that fast paced quick cut crap, we are talking about legitimate slugging deathmatches here, with Adkins vs. Arlovsky showdown in a sports equipment store an absolute standout.
As far as JC and Dolph go, there is preciously little of them in film. JC appears mostly in hallucinations suffered by the Adkins character (shot and presented in seizure-inducing manner) and towards the end, but every time he is on screen you shiver. He just looks _menacing_. Dolph, on the other hand, is...Dolph. People who watched his d2v actioners can attest to the fact that, unlike JC, Dolph does not attempt to better his characters nor acting, and in most of his scenes he just looks tepid, which makes for an interesting comparison with the original UniSol where the situation was quite the opposite. Adkins looks like a younger Van Damme sans the french accent - he just fights and looks plain, even though in this film he shows some semi-decent acting and does not fail the role. Arlovski looks semi-human and hits like a 10-ton truck - I want to see more of this guy in future.
John Hyams presents himself as a capable director, and a man with good talent for action choreography. After cutting his teeth on many TV productions such as NYPD Blue, Hyams stepped into action cinema first with Regeneration, then added another pair of JC vehicles with Dragon Eyes and now Day of Reckoning. I haven't seen the first two, but judging from the comments and grades I foraged from friends and experts, this is his best so far. Hyams does ape a lot of Cronenberg, as mentioned, and the ending is his own sort of Apocalypse Now shtick, but he does not stray too far away from his action forte. Hyams however, unlike many of the Besson acolytes and new-wave Hollywood action guys, is not a close-up-fast-cut-in-your-face cheat, and makes it a point to direct all the action so the viewer can actually tell what the fuck is going on over there, rather than just be blinded by some blowhard intercutting jabs with sound effects. For this, he has my utmost admiration.
I was quite taken aback by this movie, and the more time elapsed, the more I was into it. The opening just kinda throws you into the mix and never lets up. If JC spent the better part of last two decades honing his action tastes and ideas for this to be its apex, it's time well spent gentlemen.
***1/2 / *****
PS. I saw the dir cut, which was Unrated.
