Actioned Out. Almost. Almost Actioned Out.

When we started this blog, I had huge, realistic hopes. Here's what I figured: similar to an 80's action hero, this blog would start with meager beginnings--the occasional post, the occasional reference to porn, the occasional picture of Jean Claude in a frighteningly small mankini--but through sheer force of will we'd develop a small but loyal Following. The Following would obviously include all the pretty girls at our high schools. Then a bigger, stronger blog would get so mad at us it'd embarrass us by posting mean comments or something. The pretty girls would walk away from us. We'd be a disgrace. Then Dave, clearly our weakest link, would come out of nowhere with a Judo Chop blog about something awesome. He'd probably put in some pictures too, because that's Dave. Then the Goob would wipe off the sting of his comment slap and write an epic recap of First Blood. People would cheer. We'd regroup. We'd do so much better than the bigger, stronger blog that we'd win back the pretty girls, and the patsies from the other blog would end up being embarrassed in front of their high schools. They'd probably have food and drinks spilled on them. Jerks. The nation would rejoice.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. We did not develop our grass roots following. Also, I ran out of steam. It turns out action movies are good in small doses. Unless Jean Claude is in them. Then they are awesome in all doses but zero. Zero is an unfortunate dose of Jean Claude. I think I last wrote about Scorpion King 2. Since then I've watched two movies, but oh such glorious plans I had:

Universal Soldier 3 (or 1.5?): Regeneration (Whatever That Means)

Okay, so, um, this movie was really good? I did not expect that, like, at all.

This franchise makes absolutely no sense. The first movie comes out and is your spectacular late 80's/early 90's actioness (that's how you describe a female lion action movie). The second and third movie come out on TV and are reportedly so awful that they are erased from existence, so a new second movie is released with Jean Claude, the star of the first movie. The second movie was awful, but evidently not as awful as the first second movie, so it "counted." Then they needed to make a new third movie to replace the bad third movie but it was really the fifth movie, and it is AWESOME but also ignores the second second movie completely even though that one was supposed to count dammit! Also, this movie advances time like sixteen years and pretends that we are still at war with Russia.

Like I said, this movie once again decides to ignore pretty much everything that has happened before it. The second movie, where Jean Claude was inexplicably no longer a zombie robot shoulder but now a father and a man, either didn't happen or hasn't happened yet. I don't know. In this movie, Jean Claude is in a secluded Russian house being coached on how to become human. I don't think he has a daughter. Nor does he like boobs that much. He's indifferent towards them. He has a problem: he doesn't know how to become human because that would be way too much of a stretch for Jean Claude, so he beats up a guy in a restaurant for some reason. Then the US Army kidnaps him and says, "No human for you!" and makes him a zombie soldier again. This was good for Jean Claude (who, as it happens, has really done a decent job in the two "post-cocaine-addiction" era movies I've seen him in).

Universal Soldier 2 (or 4): The Return (Unfortunately)

Let’s be frank, the first Universal Soldier movie is one of the greatest movies of all time. It ranks with the Godfather 3s and the Star Wars Episode 1s of the world. I mean, a guy makes a necklace out of ears. Honest to goodness: human ears! That’s great. I know that guy is bad. I know he is bad because of the necklace of human ears he made and wore.

Let’s be henry, the second Universal Soldier movie is one of the worst movies of all time. It ranks with Shakespeare in Love and Slumdog Millionaire. I mean, the bad guy is bad just because. I don’t know why. Also, the bad guy is really a computer. He’s a computer because it’s the nineties. We were all so scared of computers back then. We thought they’d eventually get smart and take over the world. Little did we know computers wouldn’t get smarter. They’d become a place where people post videos of themselves dancing to pop songs and making fart noises.

Universal Soldiering is an Imperfect Science

Soldier on soldier!

Inspired by Sean's near nude picture of Jean Claude, and inspired by Dolph Lundgren's gripping performance in Rocky IV, and inspired by my love for ear necklaces, and inspired by everything awesome that ever existed, I decided to Netflix (is that officially a verb now?) Universal Soldier.  I used to love this movie.  According to wikipedia, it is a trilogy now.  This excites me a great deal. They are also making a FOURTH Universal Soldier starring the original leads and set in a "more modern setting" than, um, the early 90's?  The first Universal Soldier was not a period action piece.  It was awesome though.

Here's pretty much what happened:

The movie starts with Jean Claude standing in a rain-soaked Vietnam. That war had so much rain. Then, Jean Claude tells everyone to leave.  Except they can't leave because they are all dead.  Dolph Lundgren killed them.  He then cut off their ears and made a necklace out of them.  His ear fetish was not explained.  Nor was his hysteria.  We just needed to know he thought everyone was a traitor, and that he was CRAZY.  His craziness was accentuated when he shot two innocent Vietnamese people.  Similarly, Jean Claude was not crazy because he wanted the Vietnamese people to live.  Unfortunately both Jean Claude and Dolph killed each other three minutes into the movie.

WHAT!?!?!  The leads can't die.