Luc Devreux and Andrew Scott are US soldiers who kill each other in Vietnam when Devreux interferes with Scott's slaughter of a friendly village. Listed as MIA, they are actually flash-frozen and shipped to a top-secret facility where a team of scientists led by Colonel Perry turn the two, along with other select specimens, into super-soldiers known as "UniSols." While helping foil a terrorist takeover of the giant McKinley Dam, Devreux starts having flashbacks to his former life, and makes a break from his colleagues. The increasingly human Devreux teams up with TV reporter Veronica Roberts, while they are chased across much of the Midwest by Scott, and also by Perry and the police, who capture them long enough for Scott to find them. After a chase, thinking that they killed Scott in a truck crash, Veronica takes Devreux home to his parents in Louisiana, only to have Scott catch up with them for a brutal confrontation. An elite team of soldiers has been used against terrorists where they use astounding physical capabilities to overcome them. Victoria, a reporter, follows them and discovers a part of their secret. When one of the team kills her cameraman she tries to escape. Luc, one of the soldiers begins to have flashbacks and turns sides and helps her as the remainder of the team follows to protect their secrets. "Universal Soldier" has the same impact and atmosphere as an army recruitment commercial. It's purely an army-based flick, only to add the same elements that could be found in George Lucas' subconscious! Van Damme and Lundgren play rival 'Nam vets that die during the war, only to be resurrected as cyborgs by the U.S. government. Later, their emotions left over by their previous lives come back to screw with their main frames. Van Damme runs off with a reporter, while Lundgren tracks them down. That's where the fun starts.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Van Damme is as athletic as ever, and still struggling with his English up to then! But I think Dolph is the one with the powerhouse performance here, again playing a villain just like in "Rocky 4." He's the one with the one-liners and acting style, while Van Damme gets crappy lines like the title I used for this summary and all he ever does is punch, kick, and headbutt! I feel extremely bad for Jean Claude, and I gotta give Dolph real credit!!<br/><br/><br/><br/>** 1/2 out of ***** On a scale of "1" to "10" on the meter for one of the most awesomely bad-a** action movies from the early 1990s, 1992's "Universal Soldier" rates about an "8." I mean that, really.<br/><br/>For one, it has BOTH Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren going head-to-head, their murderous hatred of one another spanning the course of three decades. Of course, the sci-fi/action plot shamelessly re-hashes elements of "The Terminator" (1984), "RoboCop" (1987) and maybe even a little bit of "Apocalypse Now" (1979), but it's impossible to not like the finished product - just a little bit, even if it's just to see Van Damme and Lundgren sharing the same scenery together and exchanging death-blows.<br/><br/>Another little tid-bit is that "Universal Soldier" marked the early beginnings of the future "master of disaster" himself, German-born Roland Emmerich, who would go on to make such science fiction fanfare as his next film after this one, 1994's "Stargate," and followed it up with blockbuster disaster epics "Independence Day" (1996) (my personal favorite of his so far), "Godzilla" (1998), "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004), and "2012" (2009). But he had to start somewhere, and "Universal Soldier" was his introduction to the United States, and it's not a bad effort, nor is it really anything like he subsequently directed in the U.S.<br/><br/>Beginning in Vietnam in 1969, good-natured, morally principled Private Luc Devereax (Van Damme), who is at the end of his tour of duty, stumbles upon a massacre where innocent Vietnamese civilians and fellow American soldiers have been slaughtered alike - all their ears severed. Deveraux finds the culprit, Sergeant Andrew Scott (Lundgren), who has gone insane and considers anyone who opposes him as a traitor to his rage- and violence-fueled war against the insurgents. In short order, the two kill each other, only to find themselves re-animated in the present as Universal Soldiers (or "UniSols"), mindless, emotion-less genetically enhanced killing machines that operate with perfect logic under remote-control as part of a top-secret government program involving the (illegal) regeneration of dead American soldiers.<br/><br/>And of course the UniSols operate with perfect logic - they have to - except for the little traces of human memory and emotion still lurking around somewhere deep within their subconscious. And soon, GR44/Deveraux and GR13/Scott come to relive the exact same Vietnam-era horrors and hatreds that originally turned them against each other - in the present. As Deveraux gradually recovers his memory and learns his past, with the help of nosy reporter Veronica Roberts (Ally Walker), he embarks on a cross-country quest for his original identity - with the increasingly insane Scott hot on their trail.<br/><br/>"Universal Soldier" contains many of the same car chases, gun-fights, explosions, and kick-boxing mayhem audiences will come to expect from this type of film - with a heavy dose of graphic blood and violence added in for good measure. But Roland Emmerich directs the picture with such ferocious macho attitude, and energy, that it still leaves a lasting impact 21 years later. It's an action movie that rightfully earns its title as a bad-a** action flick. Van Damme makes good in a part that requires a minimalist acting performance, yet it still shows shades that he is indeed capable of a dramatic performance (see 2008's "JCVD" for further details). But it's Lundgren who steals the show in another villainous turn from his impressive role as Ivan Drago, American boxer Rocky Balboa's Soviet nemesis, from "Rocky IV" (1985).<br/><br/>And the two have one of the most awesomely bad-a** martial arts showdowns in recent memory at Deveraux's family farm in Louisiana at the end of the film.<br/><br/>The future just isn't big enough for the both of them.<br/><br/>8/10 Mr. Lundgren, who glowers his way all too convincingly through the role of a rabid bully, may well be the only man in the universe who can make Mr. Van Damme look like an actor.
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