Donkey: Stockholm Syndrome is the psychological condition in which captives begin to sympathize with their captors. I never thought I’d understand it myself, but for some reason that kept coming to mind, and I began to wonder if there’s a similar condition in which you start to believe that you’re eating ice cream if someone shits in your mouth often enough. If that’s the case, then trust me, we had achieved it. For several months we had endured a constant see-saw assault on the senses that few could withstand, as we teetered between laughing with wild abandon and shouting our way through angry exasperation at the spectacles that were bared before us. We were in love with the thrilling rollercoaster of true shittiness that we had found ourselves on and we didn’t want it to stop. So once again we turned back to the insanity of the very appropriately named The Asylum Films.

As we have already documented, The Asylum is well known for releasing poor quality films that mirror big budget titles as they are released either in theaters or on DVD. Of course, that mirror might as well have been crafted by a drunken hamster with an inner ear infection at the Unnecessarily-Spinning Mirror Factory, only ten minutes after he’d been told that he was going to be fired at the end of the day. But regardless, we have all come to understand that as The Asylum’s modus operandi. But their true genius shines through when they release a shitty imitation of a movie that hasn’t been on anyone’s radar for YEARS. And thus we come to Universal Soldiers. Although led by the immortal Jean Claude Van Damme (which means that you know that we’ll lovingly review it eventually), the original film, Universal Soldier, was released so long ago that many people have probably forgotten it even exists. So why the hell knock it off now? Our curiosity was piqued. It was time to stuff another chocolate log down our throats.

The Plot:

Donkey: Though it bucks the trend of relevance to current titles, Universal Soldiers certainly doesn’t discard all of The Asylum’s tried and true habits, as the movie’s plot makes about as much sense as the following phrase: purple chicken on corduroy toaster.

In the year 200XX, the government has engineered super soldiers of unimaginable strength. What government? Don’t know. Uruguay, perhaps? I’m sure that the movie is implying it’s the US government, but since they can’t be bothered to say, I can’t be bothered to assume. With those super soldiers loose on an island and equipped with extra sharp sticks, the fate of the world rests in the hands of a small band of military personnel determined to stop them from somehow making their way back to the mainland and invading the closest TGI Fridays. Armed only with fully automatic assault rifles and throats that somehow never seem to go hoarse no matter how much they pointlessly scream at one another, our heroes must travel to the last beacon of hope, which is either The Armory or The Mainframe depending on who happens to be shouting at the time, in order to stand a chance. Will they make it? Will even bigger guns manage to stop three middle aged men with pointy twigs? Does any of this matter? Yes, no, and no.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Milobar: Universal Soldiers, or as I like to call it, Incoherent Shoutfest V: The Revenge of the Unintelligible Sentence.

Donkey: This has got to be my favorite Asylum film so far when it comes to the title alone. Normally when they’re choosing a title for these things, they will at least take the original title and change a word. Not this time. Instead they said, “Fuck it, just throw an ‘S’ on the end and we’re good.”

Milobar: As the opening credits roll we’re treated to a glimpse of some sort of Terminator-esque robot thing.

Donkey: Why the hell do they start with this badly ripped off Terminator clone?

Milobar: I don’t understand what this has to do with the Universal Soldiers that they fight throughout the rest of the movie. The soldiers are genetically engineered super men. This is a giant robot. Make up your goddamn mind. Of course, while watching these credits we get to see a bunch of names that nobody would recognize except us, because we’ve seen a lot of these people multiple times now.

Donkey: Including Jason Gray, our favorite Asylum actor who has been in every one of these movies so far.

Milobar: We love you, Jason.

Donkey: At least this movie wasn’t produced, edited, and directed by the same person.

Milobar: That really is the mark of a great movie.

Donkey: Yeah, you know that means it’s going to be shit when it comes to The Asylum. This was, however, directed by Griff Furst, the dude who played Itchy in Transmorphers. I can’t believe that. Wait, no…I can.

Milobar: And now that the credits are done, the movie starts in a way that makes it my favorite opening of any shitty movie we’ve ever watched. It’s so goddamn ridiculous. It starts in the middle of some serious shit that they never bother to explain. They don’t give you any background information or set it up in any way. I remember watching this for the first time and saying out loud, “What the fuck? Did we just skip half way into the movie?”

Donkey: Is this a bad copy?

Milobar: That’s literally what the beginning of this movie feels like: you’ve downloaded a corrupted copy that is missing the first fifteen minutes. Not that we downloaded this movie, of course. We paid for it.

Donkey: Of course. We never download any movies and do not endorse the habit in any way. But anyways, the scene begins with a group of military personnel all standing back to back with their guns drawn in some corridor, looking like they are attempting to defend themselves from something. Suddenly some dude runs into the room and gets impaled by a spear before being yanked out of view.

Milobar: By Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, apparently.

Donkey: Undaunted by seeing someone slaughtered in front of them, the group continues talking and we discover that they need to locate The Professor and get to The Armory.

Milobar: Keep in mind, someone just mentioned The Armory is only “three clicks away”, so they should be able to get there pretty damn fast if they just run.

Donkey: This group is led by the man who played Valentine in Alien Vs Hunter, this time playing The Major. Sans mustache, unfortunately.

Milobar: Well in Alien Vs Hunter, he was playing the member of a militia, whereas he is now a soldier. Everyone knows that’s the difference between army and militia.

Donkey: Yes, mustachio vs lack of mustachio. Now that they’ve decided to move out, we see our group of military personnel wandering through tunnels. And speaking of Alien Vs Hunter, this is a great fucking start for this film having just watched that one. Just what we need is more goddamn tunnels.

Milobar: This is what The Asylum does best. And if I’m not mistaken, they emerge from the tunnels out of a culvert again.

Donkey: God, I hope so.

Milobar: I’m surprised they haven’t made a movie called Tunnels And Culverts.

Donkey: As they keep going and going, because again The Asylum can’t show people travel in any fucking hurry, we see them crawling through more tunnels.

Milobar: And as they move, they’re listening to dudes screaming in the distance as they die.

Donkey: Who is dying, how, and why? We have no fucking idea. And finally they emerge out into the world. It’s more like a drainage pipe that they’re crawling out of than a full blown culvert, but regardless, it’s still retarded.

Milobar: And now we’re treated to the other thing the The Asylum does best: very poorly edited audio.

Donkey: Immediately our team begins arguing about nothing. Even better: the mic for the scene is clearly taped to someone’s tonsils, creating that extra awesome effect where you can barely make out what they’re saying because it sounds like the speakers on my TV are about to explode, even though the volume is way down.

Milobar: Actually, they weren’t quite arguing about nothing. They were arguing about who caused the earthquake.

Donkey: What fucking earthquake? They didn’t show any earthquake, or even say that one was occurring up to this point. But as this ridiculous conversation is going on, the camera switches over to what is apparently the Heads Up Display of one of the Universal Soldiers, which is obviously something that someone threw together the night before this movie was due for their community college correspondence drama seminar. This ‘display’ looks like someone is scrolling through their iTunes playlist. That’s the best they could fucking do?

Milobar: It looks like the software that they probably used to edit this shitty movie together with.

Donkey: I prefer to think that they are trying to show us that the Universal Soldiers are picking out the soundtrack that they’re going to kill these people to.

Milobar: I prefer to think The Universal Soldiers aren’t actually genetically modified soldiers. They’re genetically modified DJs.

Donkey: This dialogue is amazing. A random soldier, whom we might as well go ahead and call First Victim, says that he thought he saw something. Another guy in the group, a young loud and cocky soldier that we’ll just refer to as Shouty McSmallballs, tells him to be more specific. So First Victim says, “I thought I FUCKING saw something.” Wow, that is more specific. I totally know what you mean now.

Milobar: As they attempt to determine their location, First Victim says that he recognizes that tree formation. What? Fuck off. Are you kidding me? “We’re in the middle of nowhere, but I’m pretty sure I recognize those trees over there. Yep, that’s definitely where I buried all the hookers.”

Donkey: As they’re babbling out that bullshit, it switches back to the Heads Up Display of the Universal Soldiers and once again, just like in Alien Vs Hunter, the shot makes it look like the super soldier is standing about four feet in front of them. But it’s been thirty seconds, so it’s time for our heroes to start arguing amongst themselves again.

Milobar: Yes! It’s time for our favorite Asylum actor, known lovingly as Champagne Assault Rifle Man, to yell at the dumbass Blonde Army Chick. Seriously, ninety five percent of the dialogue in this movie is people yelling at one another.

Donkey: Not only that, but it’s yelling that doesn’t even make any sense. It might if they bothered to explain anything at all. But they don’t, so it’s just garbled bullshit. And now First Victim, who recognized the trees, wanders off on his own to fulfill his destiny, appropriately into said trees. Boy, I bet nothing bad will happen to this asshole! And the audio odyssey continues at this point, as it now sounds like the dude they had holding the boom mic was standing in a raging river.

Milobar: Suddenly one of the Universal Soldiers sneaks into the scene, hobbling around in the background like a hunchback, and he impales First Victim against a tree.

Donkey: After running up to check out this unpredictable turn of events, our group of heroes begin arguing about what to do with First Victim. Those with half a brain conclude that he’s stapled to the tree through the chest and won’t survive, while others are shouting about taking him to the infirmary. Suddenly the Special Agent Douche of the group pulls out a gun and ends the argument by shooting the dude doing his best impression of a prawn skewer in the head, killing him. And of course, this causes the forty seventh argument of the film. After acting like they’re going to kill him, the others threaten that Secret Agent Douche will answer for that once they’re off the island. What island? What island are they supposed to be on?

Milobar: Universal Soldiers Island. It’s the latest ride at Universal Studios.

Donkey: Suddenly the geek of the group, whom we can cleverly refer to as The Geek, tells them all that they need to come see this.

Milobar: They all run over and see a red marking on a tree.

Donkey: They stand around and stare at this goddamn marking like it’s the second coming of Ted Knight. Relax. It’s a goddamn triangle with a dot in it.

Milobar: “What does it mean?” Nothing.

Donkey: One of the three women, henceforth referred to as Medical Chick, says no, it’s means that they’re learning to write. This is language. How the fuck do you know that? This might just be a marking that one of them made for themselves so that they know that they’ve been there before.

Milobar: A moment later they seem to agree and conclude that this is some kind of mapping symbol.

Donkey: One of them asks if this is marking where they’ve been or where they’re going, and someone else says, “neither”. What? Then what the fuck is it?

Milobar: Where you are right now? Or if it’s not where you’ve been and not where you’re going, is it every other possible location?

Donkey: Moments later our group marches off and we see why we refer to our favorite Asylum actor as Champagne Assault Rifle Man. As they’re all marching along, he’s carrying his rifle pointed in the air, and with one hand only carrying it with two fingers, like he’s holding champagne at a goddamn fancy dinner party. That’s insane. There’s no less effective way to carry that goddamn rifle. If they were attacked suddenly, not only would he fire straight into the air, but since he’s barely holding onto that thing, it would probably go flying out of his hands.

Milobar: There’s a higher chance that he’d shoot the people behind him than the enemy in front of him.

Donkey: Our team of heroes is continuing their journey to find The Professor, I think. And as they start yelling at each other some more, once again a Universal Soldier darts by in the background. I love the Universal Soldiers in this movie. They look like middle-aged, somewhat over-weight men in black skin-tight suits with painted pads strapped to them.

Milobar: With their skin painted gray. They look basically like Tobias Funke, except instead of blue body paint, it’s gray.

Donkey: Such vicious killing machines. As they’re arguing once again about where they should go, it’s urged again that they should be going to The Armory. Special Agent Douche then asks why they would go there, since these things are “bred to swallow bullets”. Nobody says anything for a good twenty seconds, until finally Shouty McSmallballs asks if anyone has a better idea. When no one says anything, they just say okay, and move on.

Milobar: Yeah, I’ve got a better idea. ANYTHING ELSE.

Donkey: And as they’re all standing there, still arguing for no reason, The Professor comes running towards them on a road, yelling and screaming like an idiot.

Milobar: He comes running up, drunk on Jagermeister, and our heroes all try to motion for him to shut the hell up. Suddenly Champagne Assault Rifle Man lifts up his rifle and declares that he’s got a clean shot and he’s going to take it.

Donkey: He’s just going to fucking kill him?! Is Champagne Assault Rifle Man in a persistent state of roid rage? Once he finally arrives, we can clearly see this guy is a professor, though. He’s wearing a brown corduroy jacket.

Milobar: I don’t understand why they’re referring to this guy as The Professor. He’s working for the military, developing super soldiers. Technically you’re only a professor if you’re teaching at a University. So I would think the more appropriate term in this case would be Doctor.

Donkey: Or Captain Science. Or The Brown-Jacketed Master of the Universe.

Milobar: Or High Commander Virginity.

Donkey: This conversation with The Professor expands on the current situation, telling us that the government, and Lord knows what government, has created these ultimate killing machines that are loose and trying to kill them all. Why are they loose? Why are they trying to kill them?

Milobar: If they’re the perfect killing machines, why are these people still alive? Why haven’t the Universal Soldiers just killed all of them? Instead they do the same thing that the alien did in Alien Vs Hunter. They just run around in the background chilling out.

Donkey: Our heroes then begin to push The Professor to give them “the code”. The code for what, I have no idea. Instead The Professor just babbles on about how they’re all going to die. And then he goes on to reaffirm how ridiculous the opening credits of this movie really are. He talks about how they made these super soldiers out of “men, men who had served their country”. So again, what was with the goddamn random robot? It wasn’t a Universal Soldier, so if you have the “perfect killing machines”, why would you bother to build a giant robot too?

Milobar: Robot powered Dutch Rudders?

Donkey: After a lot of babbling, The Professor gets stabbed in the head and dragged up into the air. I’m sure we’re supposed to think that was the result of a Universal Soldier attacking again, but I’m going to blame it on illegal immigrants instead. They always steal our best genetically enhanced arbitrary killing jobs!

Milobar: What was that? There were no trees around them, or anything above them for something to pull him up to. They were standing out in the goddamn open.

Donkey: What I love is the the moment he’s dragged into the air, they all start blasting away with their guns in his direction. A few seconds later, he’d dropped to the ground, quite dead, and they all look somewhat surprised by this. You know, assholes, if the stabbing and lifting didn’t kill him, perhaps the hundred bullets you sent in his direction might have. Our heroes all turn and see a forty five year old man being pulled along on a wire as he flails ridiculously in an attempt to make it look like he’s swiftly climbing a tree in the distance.

Milobar: That team of three stout men yanking on a rope are doing good work! Then the Universal Soldier starts soaring towards them like a goddamn flying squirrel.

Donkey: And then runs off like a gorilla. At this point The Geek sees fit to point out that the Universal Soldiers have the have the ability to regenerate and heal their wounds. Really? How did they manage to engineer that?

Milobar: Keep in mind that he didn’t say they have the ability to do either of those things QUICKLY. Technically, all humans have the ability to regenerate and heal their wounds. Otherwise a paper cut on your finger would be a death sentence.

Donkey: And now we come to one of the greatest sequences of the movie. As they’re walking along, just moments after and one can assume only about fifty feet away from where The Professor was killed, Blonde Army Chick gets snagged by a snare and pulled into the air, where she hangs upside down by her foot.

Milobar: The Major quickly cuts her down so that, of course, she won’t be hanging upside down and vulnerable, because obviously if the Universal Soldiers have set a trap, they’re going to come around looking for what they’ve caught in it.

Donkey: As she’s being helped up, Shouty McSmallBalls throws his gun to the ground and freaks out, calling it a useless piece of shit and once again proclaiming that they have to get to The Armory. I don’t really know what prompted that outburst, but from all this talk about it, that must be one sweet armory.

Milobar: They must have tanks, rocket launchers, and power suits with fucking flamethrowers in them. It’s going to be awesome! Once again they begin to argue, and this time the blonde chick suggests that they should be out in the open so that they can see the enemy coming. Shouty McSmallballs then points out, “But then they can see us too!” Yeah, that’s why they call it being out in the open, but thank you for explaining basic physics to me.

Donkey: Shouty McSmallballs argues that instead they should stay in the woods, where they can use stealth. Yes, because this group of shitheads has proven to be the stealthiest motherfuckers on the block so far, trundling around and screaming at each other every chance they get. Who could possibly detect these masters of the shadows?

Milobar: This great scene continues as they walk forward a few more feet and The Major suddenly gets caught in a similar snare. At first everyone points their guns at him in surprise, and then they just burst out laughing and start to make fun of him. I’m going to pretend you’re a piñata! Hilarious!

Donkey: After a few seconds of Yahoo Serious-level comic gold, the completely unthinkable happens and The Major is suddenly impaled by one of the Universal Soldier’s wooden spears. Seriously, you could not have seen that coming unless you had a set of semi-functioning eyes and cerebral cortex functionality that rivaled a jellyfish with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Milobar: That was exactly why The Major cut down the blonde chick a few minutes ago: this is a goddamn trap. You should probably get out of it quickly, or someone is going to die. But instead he gets killed by a goddamn spear that isn’t even truly a spear. It’s a fucking fence post that’s been whittled down to a point. Do you know how powerful you’d have to be to throw that through someone’s body?

Donkey: But this just gets even better as after freaking out for a few seconds and shooting in the general direction that the spear came from, the team stops and begins yet another goddamn pointless argument without taking so much as a step away from the area. HEY! THEY JUST KILLED THE MAJOR WHERE YOU’RE STANDING! MAYBE MOVE YOUR ASS!

Milobar: WE’RE GOING TO SCREAM AT EACH OTHER SOME MORE! GOT THAT?

Donkey: This just keeps going for about three minutes. That might not sound like it’s very long, but take a moment to sit and look at a clock as you just yell for three straight minutes. Trust me, it’s a lot. But now that Blonde Military Chick has finished yelling in this Lab Assistant Chick’s face, it’s time for Champagne Assault Rifle Man to step up and take his turn. Because the only way to follow up unnecessary screaming is with even more unnecessary screaming.

Milobar: How did they convince anyone to be in this goddamn movie? If I were an actor and somebody brought this script to me and asked me to be in this, I would tell them to fuck off. Even if it was my parents, or someone that had pulled me out of a burning building and the only favor they wanted in return was my appearance in this movie, I would still tell them to fuck off.

Donkey: You’d have an easier time convincing me to appear in a CakeFart video.

Milobar: I’d sooner star in an episode of Manswers or Deadliest Warrior.

Donkey: Our group finally decides to leave. They end up walking on a dirt road, stopping moments later by a corpse that they find, only to begin yet another argument. Fuck, this is PAINFUL.

Milobar: What the hell are they talking about?

Donkey: I have no idea. Every one of these arguments is an outstanding combination where you can’t hear the dialogue and it makes no goddamn sense.

Milobar: They might as well just be reading grocery lists to each other. PEANUT BUTTER! SKIM MILK! FROSTED FLAKES! EGGS!

Donkey: Literally one after the other, every single character starts screaming about some shit that doesn’t make any sense. The corpse might as well get in on that action and add its two cents worth. Finally, once they’re all finished for a moment, the Medical Chick tries to explain why they should be going to The Mainframe instead of The Armory. Fuck, haven’t they had this shouting match several dozen times already?

Milobar: Watching this movie is like getting punched in the balls with a fist wrapped in sandpaper. But not a direct punch in the balls. Just a glancing blow, so that you get the full bite of the sandpaper.

Donkey: Fuck, I can’t believe how terrible this audio is. And it’s not even restricted to when they’re screaming, even though they’re doing that most of the time. It’s when they’re simply talking in a semi-normal speaking voice as well. It’s hard to make out anything.

Milobar: Now they’ve stopped again to take a goddamn smoke break.

Donkey: Apparently this army platoon is unionized.

Milobar: They decide it’s time to sit in a circle and have a heart to heart talk with each other, chatting about why they got into the military.

Donkey: Shouty McSmallballs talks about how he had no choice because he was a fuck up as a kid, Champagne Assault Rifle Man explains that he just wanted to blow shit up without getting arrested, and The Geek chimes in with the fact that he went to Stanford. Of course, the other two immediately tell him to shut the fuck up. Yeah, fuck him for having a brain in his head. It’s much better to be a sociopath.

Suddenly Champagne Assault Rifle Man has someone call out to them on a walkie talkie that he pulled off the corpse they found. Apparently it’s some dude named Hernandez and a bunch of other army douches who are getting killed somewhere else. Naturally, Champagne Assault Rifle Man begins screaming into the walkie talkie so loudly that we can’t hear a thing.

Milobar: Champagne Assault Rifle Man just boots it off into the distance, screaming.

Donkey: Our heroes all take off in pursuit, trying to keep up with this raging cockmonger as he steamrolls to nowhere in particular. You would think that someone in the army wouldn’t be this much of a spaz. If anyone would stop and think before running into a slaughter, you’d think it would be training military personnel.

Milobar: You would think. And where the fuck are they right now? They don’t know where they are, and they have no idea where Hernandez is, so they absolutely have no idea where the fuck they are going. Fuck, they were only three ‘clicks’ from The Armory before. Did they think the fastest way to get there would be to walk in the opposite direction?

Donkey: But now it’s time to stop and have another ball-rattling screaming match about absolutely nothing. And just as things are really taking off, Champagne Assault Rifle Man has decided that he’s heard enough and decides he’s going to shoot this Lab Assistant Chick in the face. What the FUCK?! But before he can commit this awesome murder, everyone else erupts into even more shouting and it breaks down even further.

This whole fucking movie is like someone took a snippet from Aliens where Bill Paxton is freaking out, yelling, “That’s it man…game over man!” and just looped it over and over for a goddamn hour.

In the middle of the argument, Shouty McSmallballs suggests that Lab Assistant Chick and the Blonde Army Chick should start making out. Then Champagne Assault Rifle Man eventually moves on with his murderous rampage and starts threatening to kill The Geek. And this is no less ridiculous a second time.

Milobar: This entire scene degenerates into them all just pushing each other around, screaming in each other’s faces, and calling each other assholes. Why are these people even still trying to work together?

Donkey: The Blonde Army Chick declares that they need to make more weapons. Make weapons? OUT OF WHAT? If your goddamn fully automatic assault rifles aren’t going to do the trick, what exactly are you going to make on your own that could do any better? A fucking nuclear warhead out of three rocks and a particularly large scab?

Milobar: Let me just disassemble my shoes and see what I can come up with.

Donkey: Again they’re saying they have to get to The Armory. Fuck, I’ve heard this about twenty times now. Just move your ass and get there already. But suddenly the Medical Chick is taken out by another stick that comes sailing through the air out of fucking nowhere. The rest of the group immediately starts shooting at nothing, just to show the air who’s boss. Which brings us to another aspect of this movie that makes it second to none: Normally in an Asylum film, they will have people hold their guns in a way so that the ends of the muzzles are out of frame, so that you can’t see that they’re not actually firing anything. Blanks are expensive, you know. In this movie, they don’t even do that much. These guys are just running around with their guns clearly doing NOTHING, while the sound effect of gunfire can be heard. They might as well be pointing them and yelling, “BANG BANG!”

Milobar: And that’s what makes this another true Asylum classic. They can’t be bothered to even try to hide their shitty production value.

Donkey: After sending a hail of mind-bullets through the air, our team separates, running off in different directions. I suppose that’s an improvement over their decision to just stand and argue like they did after the last person died. As we see them stalking their way through sparse trees, The Medical Chick and the Blonde Army Chick, the two surviving women, run into each other.

Milobar: I think Blonde Army Chick is totally going to rape Lab Assistant Chick. But we also see Shouty McSmallballs and The Geek, both standing on opposite sides of the same tree.

Donkey: Realizing that someone is on the other side of the tree, The Geek gets a fist ready and Shouty McSB’s cocks his gun, as they both ready themselves to confront the other. I have a feeling as to who’s going to win this argument.

Milobar: They jump out and The Geek punches Shouty in the face, just as Shouty McSmallballs shoots The Geek in the fucking throat with his shotgun. Oops.

Donkey: Just then we switch back to the two women hiding behind a tree when suddenly a Universal Soldier rears up before them. It takes one swing at them, then darts off. Wow. That’s quite the killing machine, alright.

Milobar: It goes back to Shouty and The Dead Geek, and just then Secret Agent Douche walks up to find the fresh corpse. Shouty looks at him and just says, “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” Um… you snuck around the same tree, both thinking the other was a Universal Soldier, and you shot him by accident. That doesn’t really seem that unbelievable.

Not really that concerned with a dead geek, Secret Agent Douche looks off into the distance and declares that they have five miles left. What? I thought it was only three ‘clicks’ how the fuck long is a ‘click’ then?

Donkey: The movie eventually goes back to the two women walking together, and the Lab Assistant Chick is suddenly holding what has got to be the biggest fucking pinecone I’ve ever seen in my life.

Milobar: She’s just looking at it, smiling like they’re on a goddamn nature hike.

Donkey: This doesn’t even seem like it was in the script, as there’s no mention made of it at all. It’s like this chick just happened upon this giant fucking pinecone and wouldn’t put it down, even after they started filming again.

Milobar: “I wonder if I could put this thing in my vagina?”

Donkey: And now we’re turned back to the group of three remaining men, just wandering through the woods. Fuck, I’m getting flashbacks of Alien Vs Hunter again. It’s like I’m having flashbacks from ‘Nam.

Milobar: I don’t understand how in the same scene, the audio for one dude is cranked to eleven, and for the other dude in the scene, it’s set to negative one.

Donkey: It’s almost as if they attached the mic to one dude’s jacket lapel, so it sounds like he’s screaming and everyone else is whispering.

Milobar: At this point, I wouldn’t doubt if that was the case.

Donkey: So the three remaining men, Secret Agent Douche, Shouty McSmallballs, and Champagne Assault Rifle Man, catch sight of one of the Universal Soldiers, and the Secret Agent Douche explains that these super soldiers were all developed with common traits, but also with specialized individual supers. He explains that the one, apparently named Teleklaus or something ridiculous like that, has the ability to shapeshift. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Just keeping piling it on, boys. Does he also transform into a gun? Did some asshole try to create Megatron?

Milobar: The three of them start talking about what they’re going to do to get out of here when Champagne Assault Rifle Man goes from threatening to kill anyone who isn’t quiet enough to loudly declaring that he’s not leaving anyone behind, even the dead people I’m guessing.

Donkey: Outstanding. It’s like they handed someone with extreme bi-polar disorder a gun and a bucket of Crystal Meth. He goes from extreme valor to “don’t look at me funny or I’ll fucking kill all you bitches” at random. But now the movie returns to the two chicks wandering around by themselves.

Milobar: It’s been a couple of minutes, so it’s time for them to stop and scream in each other’s faces for a while.

Donkey: I’m not even trying to listen to what they’re saying anymore. It’s pointless.

Milobar: Now we switch to the most homo-erotic, ass-rubbing, Dutch Rudder operation that I’ve ever seen.

Donkey: The three remaining men are all walking back to back in a little triangle, appearing to be heading in no particular direction, square dancing their way to Hillbilly Heaven.

Milobar: As they go, the Universal Soldier keep running past them, flashing across the camera in front of them.

Donkey: The great part about this is that they’re not standing in the middle of the deep woods. They’re in a clearing, out in the open. So no matter how fast these super soldiers are running past the camera, these three chumps should be able to see these things running the whole time, from the spot where they came from over to the spot where they end up.

Milobar: They can see it running across their vision, they can’t possibly miss it.

Donkey: Suddenly they turn around and it’s standing right behind them. The Universal Soldier is a courteous foe, however, as he just stands there while they very slowly bring their guns up, take aim for about ten minutes, and try to work as a firing squad.

Milobar: But of course, as they finally start to fire, they discover that they’re all out of ammo at the same time. In an act of desperation, Secret Agent Douche throws some loosely executed martial arts attacks which, as expected, have absolutely no effect.

Donkey: He and the Universal Soldier end up rolling down a hill together. These fucking super soldiers really do suck. First one throws a single punch at a woman and then runs, and now this one’s rolling down a hill with this dude. This seems more like elementary school flirting than any kind of real danger.

Milobar: I don’t know, that’s sounds pretty intimidating to me. If I went rolling down a hill with Secret Agent Douche, I’d be terrified for my life. And now the two of them end up hanging off a cliff.

Donkey: This is The Asylum, however, so hanging off a cliff consists of lying along the ground and them tilting the camera sideways. Look at that shit. That’s just outstanding. The goddamn trees in the scene are either growing out of the ground horizontally, or that AIN’T A FUCKING CLIFF.

Milobar: The shot of them rolling down the hill to get to this point was the same thing. It was just a sideways shot of them somersaulting along the ground.

Donkey: Moments later, Secret Agent Douche gives up hanging from the “cliff” and tumbles to a gentle stop at the grassy bottom, where he sees the opening to a tunnel and a boulder on the hillside just above it. With a single shot from his pistol, which I could have swore was out of ammo just a minute ago, he brings the boulder crashing down and dives into the tunnel just before it’s blocked, leaving the Universal Soldier outside to try to figure out what to do to counter this giant ball of papier-mâché.

Milobar: Perfect timing!

Donkey: The movie goes back to the two women, who are standing by a tree and sharing a tender moment where Lab Assistant Chick is telling the blonde that she’s glad to have her company, when suddenly the tree gets struck by another one of the sharpened fence posts that these Universal Soldiers are throwing around. Wait, this thing was nailing people with those without fail from extreme distances before. Why did it miss now?

Milobar: Fucking hot dogs are more of an ultimate killing machine than these things are. It might take a while, but at least hot dogs are guaranteed to kill you.

Donkey: I’d be more scared of heating my dinner in a fucking plastic container than these damn things at this point. But the movie switches back to Secret Agent Douche, who is crawling through tunnels, apparently trying to get to The Mainframe.

Milobar: They spend the vast majority of this movie arguing about where they should go, to The Armory or to The Mainframe, and when they eventually get to both, you realize that neither was worth going to in the first place.

Donkey: The movie turns back to the two women, who are now taking cover by a log. Suddenly one of the Universal Soldiers grabs the blonde by the head and tosses her.

Milobar: Looks like Shouty McSmallballs and Champagne Assault Rifle Man have finally reached The Armory.

Donkey: Success! But before we can see them load up on what I’m sure will end up being the most glorious instruments of death ever shot on film, we go back to Blonde Army Chick and the Universal Soldier, who are still locked in a life-or-boredom struggle.

Milobar: They speed up the film so that it looks like this fight is intense, and ridiculously so. I feel like I’m watching the end of The Ice Pirates again. She finally gets the upper hand and screams, “why won’t you die?” as she’s beating on it. It won’t die because it’s not designed to, lady. They literally said as much earlier.

Donkey: So she defeats this ultimate killing machine by knocking it around until it’s on its ass and then stabbing it with a stick? Seriously, why are these things considered even remotely dangerous?

But now the movie turns back to the two men at The Armory as they open the doors and reveal its grand contents: six handguns hanging on a wall and a row of helmets. That wouldn’t even qualify as an armory in a fucking Latvian slum. And what made this especially ridiculous for us was that the first time we watched this movie, we were in Blombo’s basement. And Blombo’s father happens to be a hunter who owns a lot of guns. So as this ‘armory’ was revealed to us, we were literally sitting next to a rifle cabinet that had more goddamn guns in it that this fucking armory did. The other great thing about this is that they were carrying fully automatic assault rifles in the first place. So this whole time, they’ve been screaming about how their only chance for survival was reaching a place where they could trade those up for some fucking handguns. That’s as retarded as exclaiming that the only way that you’ll ever manage to fight off a clan of ninjas is by trading your katana straight up for a plastic butter knife.

Milobar: Secret Agent Douche, now inside some sort of secret lab, manages to escape from a Universal Soldier by shooting him. I thought bullets aren’t supposed to defeat these things? They don’t actually show us how he managed to get away anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

Donkey: With that random bit of lazy film making over, we now turn back to the two dudes back at The Armory. They hear someone coming, so they pull open the doors and stick their guns out.

Milobar: I love how they stick their guns out, but don’t bother to fire or actually look around the corner. What’s the point of doing that?

Donkey: It’s like they just want to show whoever is approaching that they do, in fact, have guns, but they don’t know how to use them. Well done, boys. Fear not. This will all be over soon and you can go back to waiting tables in East LA. But it’s a moot point, as it turns out to be the two surviving women arriving at their idiotic defensive line, who have managed to finally catch up to them.

Milobar: Secret Agent Douche has located a pod with yet another Universal Soldier in it.

Donkey: That’s the same fucking pod that Mitchell climbed in at the end of Transmorphers to shut down the machines.

Milobar: That most certainly is.

Donkey: It quickly switches to the perspective of the Universal Soldier in the pod for a moment, and we see this one’s name is Skyler. That’s got to be the shittiest name for a killing machine that you could possibly come up with. Fuck, you might as well have called it Rainbow at that point. Secret Agent Douche opens the pod and kills the Universal Soldier by shooting it in the face several times. That’s funny, once again I could have swore that they specifically said that wouldn’t kill them earlier in the film.

Milobar: Yep. These things are supposed to swallow bullets. So it’s a good thing that the other four survivors loaded up at the armory as they prepare to make the dreaded run to The Mainframe.

Donkey: Which looks a lot like a shitty radio tower. And for this scene they decided to change things up a bit, as all of the dialogue is now being drowned out by the fucking wind. Did they film this in a goddamn hurricane?

Milobar: Champagne Assault Rifle Man is running with two goddamn SMG’s, one in each hand, pointed to the sky of course.

Donkey: Suddenly a Universal Solider pops up and nails Shouty McSmallballs in the leg with another pointy stick. Champagne Assault Rifle Man runs up screaming “MAN DOWN!” and the blonde stands around screaming randomly.

Milobar: The absolutely baffling thing about this is that we saw the Universal Soldier pop up out of the grass about six feet away when it attacked. Why is it just sitting back while these people stand around and scream like idiots? Why not kill all of them right now?

Donkey: Considering how easily two of them have been killed now, maybe these Universal Soldiers can’t fight worth a shit, other than throwing sticks from a distance. But now Champagne Assault Rifle Man lights up a smoke and hands it to Shouty, giving him one last thrill before he dies. Well, second to last. He’s going to stick a finger up Shouty’s ass in a moment.

Milobar: He got a spear through the leg, for fuck’s sake. He’s not dying. You could at least try to carry him or something. What happened to not leaving anyone behind?

Donkey: It’s too late for all of that, but at least they’ll get to say a proper good bye as he and Champagne Assault Rifle Man now look like they’re about to make out.

Milobar: I think he’s going to try to swallow his head, like a snake eating a rabbit. “Don’t worry my love, I’ll save you by carrying you in my stomach.”

Donkey: The two of them are speaking quietly to one another, as a tender moment is shared between the two men, but the fucking wind is still drowning the whole thing out. I can’t hear a goddamn word they’re saying.

Milobar: Honestly, I don’t want to hear a word they’re saying.

Donkey: Finally Champagne Assault Rifle Man moves on, leaving Shouty McSmallballs behind as the Universal Soldier comes out to finish the job. For some reason, the Universal Soldier runs past and just pushes the stick slightly further into this guy’s leg. That’s it? But apparently it was enough to push him over the edge, as Shouty takes his gun, puts it under his chin, and does the only intelligent thing that anyone’s done in this entire movie as he blows his goddamn brains out. Of course, the gun doesn’t actually fire and we don’t see his head explode like it should. But whatever. Pantamime will do, I suppose.

Milobar: Champagne Assault Rifle Man once again starts freaking out. He’s running forward, suddenly pulls a 180, shoots five or six bullets out of each of his SMGs, and then he just tosses them away. He doesn’t drop them or throw them out to the sides, he just kinda tosses them up about six inches like a nine year old girl.

Donkey: Wow, I’m glad they made it to The Armory. That single moment was the only thing that its weapons were used for, and that was so worth it. And once again, I love how during those five or six shots of his guns, they don’t bother to use blanks or simulate the guns firing in any way. He finally catches up to the two women, who have already entered the front door of The Mainframe. But just as he makes it inside, closes the door, and turns around, we see that Champagne Assault Rifle Man has taken a stick to the chest like so many before him and is about to die. But before he does, he rips the dog tags from his neck.

Milobar: And then kisses them?

Donkey: Yep. He really is a fucking lunatic. And then Blonde Army Chick, out of either mercy or a genuine sense of satisfaction, shoots him in the back of the head to put him out of his misery. But just then, the blonde feels the barrel of another gun placed on the back of her head and discovers that Lab Assistant Chick has betrayed her. Lab Assistant Chick now reveals that this whole thing was a test that she perpetrated to prove that one of her men was worth fifty of these regular soldiers. I’d say that test was a pretty big fucking failure then, considering two of them were taken out using a stick and a handgun, respectively.

Milobar: But as Lab Assistant Chick is blabbing on, a grate falls down from the ceiling behind her and Secret Agent Douche drops down without her noticing. He takes aim behind her and shoots her in the back of the head.

Donkey: Wait, the blonde is standing about four feet directly in front of the evil lab assistant. If she got shot in the back of the head, shouldn’t that bullet have gone through and struck the blonde in the goddamn face?

Milobar: Especially from that distance. But of course now Blonde Army Chick uses her incredible computer hacking skills to break into The Mainframe.

Donkey: While that’s going on, one of the Universal Soldiers tries to break down the front door to get in and stop her, while Secret Agent Douche tries to hold it shut.

Milobar: This door has a window that allows us to see through to the face of the Universal Soldier, and this window just happens to not have any glass in it. So in reality, the thing could just reach through and grab the Secret Agent Douche. And it’s very quick, but at one point the Secret Agent actually puts his fingers through where the glass should be by accident.

Donkey: That’s just goddamn awesome. Finally the blonde manages to reactivate The Mainframe, which shuts down the Universal Soldier that was attacking somehow. Not really sure why, as it’s not clear what The Mainframe allowed them to do.

Milobar: Order pizza, I’m guessing. “Hello Pizza Hut? This is The Mainframe. We need some pepperoni, STAT!”

Donkey: So moments later we see the Secret Agent Douche on a phone, calling back to HQ, filing a report and asking for air support to come and lift them off of the island.

Milobar: I don’t understand this. They call for an airlift out. Sure, why not. But then we see them walking down a dirt road to get to the helicopter. Why didn’t the helicopter just come to the building and get them there? Wouldn’t that make more sense?

Donkey: As they’re walking, the Secret Agent Douche stares at her ass and then awkwardly stumbles his way through proposing that he put his penis inside of her.

Milobar: I think he’d prefer to have her penis inside of him.

Donkey: The blonde indicates that she would indeed like to see his predictably unimpressive rod of pleasure, and they start making out. And really, why not? She’s got a vagina, I think, so according to the laws of shitty movies, she should want to have sex with any man who asks with very little motivation as to why.

Milobar: This is almost as awkward as watching Sad Titties in Snakes On A Train. But then, suddenly, Secret Agent Douche gets speared from behind.

Donkey: What? Why? Why is this Universal Soldier that walks into view still active?

Milobar: The blonde chick yanks the spear out of the Secret Agent’s chest with one hand and then runs off.

Donkey: Seconds later, she stops to catch her breath and the camera pans over to show the Universal Soldier speed walking in very gradual pursuit.

Milobar: It arrives at the last spot we saw her, which was only ten feet in front of him and then looks around confused, not sure of where she went. It turns out that she climbed into the tree right beside her. But she did this while he was approaching, so there’s no way that he couldn’t have seen exactly where she went.

Donkey: She jumps down and attacks, and a fearsome struggle ensues. Well, fearsome in comparison to those nights where you play-wrestle with your cat. Once again, she stabs it in the chest with the stick and screams the same fucking line, “why won’t you die?” Why the fuck won’t that line die?

Milobar: Now that she’s finished him off, she stumbles down to a lake to clean herself off because she’s covered in blood.

Donkey: Sweet Jesus. That water she using to clean herself off looks like it came from a sewage lagoon.

Milobar: Suddenly we get to see the giant robot from the opening credits, and it’s being activated! Wait, who’s turning this robot on? Uh-oh, she’s in trouble now, robot crotch is one hundred percent activated!

Donkey: In classis Asylum form, they recycle the exact same scene within seconds. They show a monitor that’s displaying all the robot’s parts as they are charging and then switching to enabled. Then it shows this robot rocketing up an elevator. And then for no discernable reason, they show the exact same scene of the monitor and the individual components charging and then becoming enabled again.

The movie switches back to the blonde washing her hair in the nuclear sludge spill site, and the robot walks in from the horizon. We can now see how big this damn thing is, which is just continuing to make it even more ridiculous. Why even bother with super soldiers that can be killed with fucking sharp sticks if you’ve got a robot that’s ten stories high? Just like the end of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, where they spent the entire movie building up Galactus as the ultimate threat that could never be defeated only to have him destroyed rather easily, this movie also nullifies everything that they’ve (very poorly) been trying to do. This robot makes everything else arbitrary and pointless.

Milobar: Now it’s time for stock footage of fighter jets. Oh, Tiny Juggernaut, you sure were earning your money on this one.

Donkey: As the robot pursues the blonde, she runs and screams into a walkie talkie, attempting to send attack orders to the fighter jets.

Milobar: How the fuck is she managing to run faster than a robot that’s ten stories tall? As she frantically scrambles along the countryside, she falls and drops her walkie talkie. Oh no! How can the jets fire on her mark now?

Donkey: As the tension builds, let’s arbitrarily cut to more stock footage of jets. Sweet. Now the blonde manages to make it to what appears to be the island’s power station.

Milobar: Once again we see the jets and they appear to be flying in the desert. Where the hell is the desert around here? No part of this island looked like a goddamn desert before?

Donkey: There’s nothing like using stock footage that doesn’t even fit with the rest of your film. They might as well have spliced in footage of World War II dogfights, or the Wright brothers taking their first flight. Finally the robot catches up to her, making his way into the power station.

Milobar: This is such a gay ending. Not that any of the endings in any Asylum movies are good. Apparently the goddamn robot has lost track of this one blonde woman and thinks she may be in the sky, because it starts looking up. Moments later the robot gets hit with a couple of direct missile blasts that manage to do a net damage of zero. Seeing an opportunity, the blonde chick fires her pistol at the power station and manages to cause an explosion, which electrocutes the robot. I’d love to know where you have to shoot a goddamn power station that will make it explode and fire out electricity like a goddamn Tesla coil.

Donkey: The robot then begins to burn in a ridiculous fake fire. I’d love to know what they are suggesting is feeding that fire. It’s a goddamn metal skeleton. It’s not like it was carrying big fucking tanks of propane.

Milobar: I think flamingly gay might just count as combustible.

Donkey: Finally feeling safe, we see the blonde waving at…cargo planes? Where the hell did they come from? The movie fades out, and comes back in to show the blonde back at military HQ, as she’s handing in the dog tags of the soldiers who died on the island. When the hell did she gather those up?

Milobar: The movie ends as we see an anonymous hand grabbing the dog tags, taking them up a flight of stairs and dropping them on a table next to a computer, where someone uses them to load each of the personnel files and ominously delete them.

Donkey: Of course, the profile pictures of the people that are coming up on that computer look nothing like the people who actually played the characters, but I guess there’s not really any point in trying at this point. Fuck it…it’s the end of the movie.

Milobar: What a square kick in the goddamn balls this movie is.

Donkey: This was absolute goddamn nonsense, which might be a tie with Alien Vs Hunter when it comes to most confusing plot that I’ve ever witnessed.

Milobar: This movie is almost exactly like Alien Vs Hunter, as both are about people who fight with each other for no apparent reason, wander through the woods and tunnels with no real objective, and are hunted very poorly by idiots in costumes that appear to be cobbled together from the discarded inventory of a inner city thrift store. You could arguably take all the shots of the alien and the hunter in Alien Vs Hunter and just swap them with the shots of the Universal Soldiers in this movie and it would be the same damn thing.

Donkey: I guess that makes sense. After all, if you mash two cornback chocolate rattlers together, you still end up with a handful of shit when all is said and done.

The Verdict:

Donkey: If you’re going to knock off a movie with JCVD in it, you should have chosen the movie Knock Off. The irony alone would have made it awesome. But either way, you’re going to have to pull out all the stops to make it a more glorious shit heap than the original, if that’s even possible. But consider it done, friends, and in spades. It’s a quite simple recipe, actually. Take one part horribly unrelated Terminator cyborg introduction, add a plot that seems to pick up an hour into the story, mix in BLLLLAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH BALLS ON MY FACE WE’VE GOT TO GET TO THE ARMORY AAAAAAARRRRRGGHHHH!!!!, and top it off with a pinch of unnecessary giant robot ending. Now that’s a fucking movie. I give this five champagne assault rifles out of five.

Milobar: Ultimately, this film is an introspective look in to the modern human condition. Will we one day be defeated by our own technology, or will we somehow find stability with our world and our environment? Will we have to choose between heading directly towards our internal Mainframe, or take the time to visit The Armory of our souls? Will we be able to properly master our own perception so that when we are laying horizontally on the ground we will see that we are actually hanging vertically off a cliff? These questions are unsettling, and we may never find a satisfactory answer to them, mostly because this movie is FUCKING RIDICULOUS. I give this movie 58 sharpened fence posts out of 6 handguns in The Armory.

What We Learned:

Donkey: THE ONLY WAY TO ADDRESS ANYONE IN ANY GIVEN SITUATION IS WITH INCESSENT SCREAMING, PREFERABLY WITHIN SIX INCHES OF YOUR COMPANION’S FACE AND WITH BREATH THAT SMELLS LIKE YOU’VE BEEN FRENCH KISSING A TROUT’S ASSHOLE! IT’S COMMON GODDAMN COURTESY!!!!!!!

Milobar: The next time I find myself in a situation where I don’t have anything witty, clever, or even remotely relevant to say, I’m just going to start screaming incoherently. If it works for The Asylum I’m sure it will work for me.

Don’t forget to check back every Tuesday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: JCVD once again rocks our world, this time with intense crotch exercises and invicible Coke machines in…DOUBLE TEAM.

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