Released: July 10, 1992
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Written by: Dean Devlin based on a story by Christopher Leitch & Richard Rothstein
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren & Ally Walker
Plot: The military has created a way to revive dead soldiers and turn them into perfect, unstoppable machines. Problems arise when a pair of Vietnam veterans begin to remember their lives from before they died.
IMDb: 5.9/10Rotten Tomatoes: 19/100
My Score: 2.5/5
Universal Soldier is an 90's action film and it shows. Thin story, mediocre acting, cheesy dialogue and plenty of explosions are the order of the day in this one but at least there's enough action to keep it interesting when the plot fails to do so. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren are a pair of soldiers who served together in Vietnam. Lundgren went crazy and killed a village full of innocents. Van Damme tried to stop him but they ended up killing each other. Present day, they have both been resurrected as Universal Soldiers, near perfect warriors of the American military who have their memories routinely wiped with drugs to keep them subservient. Problems arise when Van Damme starts regaining his memories and goes AWOL with chain smoking reporter Ally Walker, who's looking for a scoop on the whole operation. Lundgren gives the strongest performance of the principals, particularly once he also regains his memories. He's totally believable as the sociopathic sergeant who has mentally never come back from the war. Co-starring Leon Rippy, Ed O'Ross, Ralf Moeller, and Tiny Lister, Jerry Orbach also appears but in little more than a cameo as a doctor who was part of the original "UniSol" program. Ron Howard's father, Rance Howard, also appears as Van Damme's father. According to the film's Wikipedia page, Universal Soldier was a rejected script for Marvel Comics character Deathlok. The film spawned a franchise consisting of six films, only three of which are considered canon.
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