It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The Universal Soldier franchise as terrible as they've been must have been profitable otherwise they wouldn't have lasted. So with that in mind it begs the question, why would they overhaul the entire formula?The Universal Soldier films have been brainless action flicks about the genetically modified undead soldiers but here it goes in a totally different direction and is no better for it.It tells the story of a man who witnesses his wife and daughter murdered by home invaders. He wakes up from a coma and begins to investigate what happened to him, why he was targetted and the man who was responsible Luc Deveraux!Yes thats right, Van Dammes character and the main protagonist throughout the franchise. So with Van Damme reprising and Lungren along for the ride yet again we see a brand new type of Universal Soldier movie. Sadly it just doesn't work, though it starts strong it quickly becomes apparent that the writers had no idea where they were going with this new approach and it all falls apart. The plot is a jumbled mess and the only redeeming factor is the action which is more on point than usual.Sadly its impossible to get past just how much of a baffling mess Day of Reckonings story is, what they've done to the two recurring characters and makes me very much hope this is the last addition to the franchise.The Good:Interesting opening sceneSFX are actually on pointThe Bad:Makes absolutely no senseMajor shift will not have please fans of the franchiseThings I Learnt From This Movie:Upon seeing a gun mens penis's shrivel upThis movie is NOT for epilepticsLosing half of your foot won't affect your ability to walk

Even the original Universal Soldier film was not that great but the series have managed to survive.Despite the presence of Van Damme and Lundgren who only make a cameo appearance, Scott Adkins is the star.Adkins is a family man called John who finds intruders in his house who kill his wife and daughter while he his left in a coma. When he awake with the recurring memories of his family being killed, with the help of a shadowy agency me who kill his wife and daughter. John goes after Luc Devreux (Van Damme) who killed them and left him injured. It is no surprise to find out that John is a cyborg. The story was in some ways inspired by elements of Terminator: Salvation, relating to false memories. The action only improves in the later stages of the film when Adkins gets to do his fight scenes.However this is just a low budget, low wattage action movie.

At times this movie tries to be Terminator. There are lots of scenes of super human killers stalking through closed spaces (Terminator police station scene) and of super human killers driving a service truck while chasing the good guy (almost every Terminator movie).At times this movie tries to be Universal Soldier. But those pieces feel thrown in just to warrant the title.The fights are so MMA they become boring.Characters' motivations aren't clear. The Van Damme character and the Dolph character seem to have some relationship, but they're never in the same scene. Looks like each one filmed his scenes on separate days.For Universal Soldier, the problem is not enough action. There are long, woodenly acted scenes of discovery. Even the action scenes have over long build ups. A lot of this movie feels like one of the modern, SFX and camera trick dependent horror movies - not interesting, not scary, but the director showed his technical expertise.The lead actor is awful - a body built, MMA guy with a generic Euro accent.It would be a blessing if someone could remove the memory of this crap from my brain.JCVD's movies were sometimes promoted with the concept of Van Damme-age - "maximum Van Damme-age, double the Van Damme-age. This one is minimum Van Damme-age.

*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERSThis movie is a very fresh take on an old action/sci-fi franchise. The tone of this movie is completely different from previous movies. It feels like an horror/thriller movie now. There are references to video games and "Apocalypse now". Scott Adkins is a main hero now , while Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren basically play 5 minute episodes now. Fans of Jean and Dolph will probably be disappointed. Adkins tries to find out who and why murdered his family. The story starts intriguing , but the more the movie moves forward the plot becomes confusing . Why is Van Damme working with Lundgren ? They were enemies before , so what changed ? And Lundgren died in earlier movie ,so why he is alive now ? Is he a clone ? What's the government part in all of this ? What's with all the clones ? What was the point of the hallucinations ?None of this is answered and the final result is one big mess. I like to figure out things on my own , but the writers should really give the audience more information. Otherwise the movie feels like a badly connected set of twists. Also the characters are completely bland and uninteresting.Director John Hyams provides the movie with some great action scenes. He knows how to create suspense and excitement. I would love to see him make a big budget action movie. The R-rating is used fully and wisely. Too bad that most of the action happens only in second half of the movie. Also , the movie sometimes drags during dialogues.Overall , it's quite entertaining in places and ambitious movie , but the bad screenplay drags it down. I give it 3/10.