Universal Soldier (1992)

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nTitle: Universal Soldier (1992)

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nDirector: Roland Emerich

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nUniversal Soldier is a film that’s primarily known for unitingntwo huge action stars from the 80’s/90’s; I of course talk of Jean Claude VannDamme and Dolph Lundgren. Now, back in the day this was a big deal because VannDamme was the action star of the moment. Before Universal Soldier came along,nhe’d done a string of extremely successful action films like Cyborg (1989),nKickboxer (1989), Lionheart (1990) and Death Warrant (1990). The good thingnthat Van Damme had going for him was these films were low budget action filmsnthat managed to make their money back. Just as an example: Cyborg cost aboutn500,000 dollars to make yet grossed more than 10 million! Kickboxer cost 1.5nmillion yet grossed more than 14 million! Van Damme career kept growing, eachnmovie getting just a little bigger. Universal Soldier was the biggest film VannDamme had been a part of up to that point. On the other side of the ring wenhave Dolph Lundgren who started his career with a small role as a henchman on AnView to a Kill (1985), then hit the big time by starring as ‘Ivan Drago’ in SylvesternStallone’s Rocky IV (1985). He then  tookna stab at starting a franchise (and failed miserably) with Masters of thenUniverse (1987), then worked on a series of low budget yet enjoyable flicksnlike The Punisher (1989);  which by thenway is still the best Punisher film out there if you ask me. He also made thensci-fi action film I Come in Peace (1990) which I’m dying to re-watch, I ComenIn Peace is such an obscure sci-fi flick that seems to have simply slippednthrough the cracksn and disappeared. As you can see, both of these actors hadnrespectable action star careers at the time when their careers crossed paths onnUniversal Soldier, so of course, it was a major event to see them workingntogether on a project. Question is was this movie big enough for the both ofnthem?

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nUniversal Soldier starts out with these two Americannsoldiers on active duty in Vietnam. One of them goes completely bonkersn(Lundgren) and starts killing off innocent Vietnamese people without mercy,neven going as far as cutting off their ears and making a necklace out of them!nIn comes Van Damme, the good natured soldier, to try and put an end to hisnmadness and bring the crazed soldier back to reason. Unfortunately Lundgren’sncharacter is too far gone into his madness and so they end up kicking each other’snasses until they kill each other! In comes a special military unit who bagsntheir bodies and ships them off to somewhere. That somewhere ends up being thisnspecial program called UNISOL, which basically brings soldiers back from thendead and turns them into these zombie soldiers which the government hasncomplete control over, or so they think! These zombie soldiers don’t looknanything like zombies, far from it! You see, the government has apparentlyndeveloped away to get the Unisol’s skin to regenerate when exposed to the cold.nDon’t ask me why; just chalk it up to bullshit movie science. Anyway, it isn’tnlong before the animosity between these two soldiers reawakens and blamo, wenare right back where we started, with these two soldiers trying to kick thenliving crap out of each other.

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nThis film was directed by Roland Emmerich, a director who isncurrently known for directing big budget summer blockbusters like IndependencenDay (1996), Stargate (1994) and 2012 (2009). Recently he directed White HousenDown (2013). But back in 1992, it was Universal Soldier that ended up being hisnfirst truly big budget Hollywood film, it was Emmerich’s big break to provenhimself to the big Hollywood moguls. Before it, he’d made a string of smallnpictures like the supernatural family film Making Contact (1985) and thenMichael Pare starring sci-fi film Moon 44 (1990). Universal Soldier ended upnbeing Emmerich’s Hollywood training wheels, after that there was no stoppingnEmmerich from becoming the successful filmmaker he became. I mean, here’s anfilmmaker that plays the Hollywood game every step of the way, he makes thenmovies that Hollywood producers love. How so? Well, if Hollywood likes PG-13nfilms because they’ll make more money, then he’ll give them a PG-13 rated film!nHollywood likes a happy ending? Emmerich will give it to them! They don’t likennudity or foul language? He’ll go with that as well. There’s no denying thatnEmmerich’s films are squeaky clean, he gives Hollywood the formula they want,nhe plays by their rules and they love it. Now, here’s the interesting thingnabout Universal Soldier: it comes from another time in Hollywood, another era,nand so, here we have a Roland Emmerich film that’s actually rated R, fillednwith nudity and violence! Who would’ve thought it?

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nUniversal Soldier is a well thought out film in some ways,nit was made by a group of people who knew the kind of film they were making andnwho they were making it for. For example, yeah sure, action films are largelynseen by a male audience because we like the action, the explosions, the guns,nbut it’s no secret that both Dolph Lundgren and Van Damme were a huge hit withnthe ladies as well, this is probably the reason why the filmmakers decided toninclude many a scene in which Van Damme’s character stripping. Now if you’venseen many of Van Damme’s films, then you know that he was in the habit of showingnhis bare on ass on most of his films. I mean in terms of ass shots, UniversalnSoldier has got to be some kind of record for Van Damme! There’s this wholenscene that revolves around the female protagonist having to look through VannDamme’s whole body for some sort of a tracking device that is hidden beneathnhis skin, the scene takes a while as the girl slowly but surely makes her waynthrough Van Dammes pectoral muscles and thighs…you get the picture. Thenfilmmakers knew the ladies would get a kick out of these scenes, in fact, justnthe fact that they had a woman as the lead lets you know that the filmmakersnkept the female audience in mind. There’s even a scene with an old ladynchecking out Van Damme as he walks naked through the street and her son tellsnher “shame on you!” So yeah, the film is both aimed to please the dudes in thenaudience (with the action) as well as the ladies, with all of Van Damme’s nudenscenes. 

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nIn terms of the action, the film satasfied but didn’t exceed my expectations. There’s ancouple of action set pieces that are pretty cool, like a chase sequence betweenna bus and the UNISOLS big ass tank/truck/laboratory thing that takes place innaround the Grand Canyon, it’s pretty explosive. And the ‘piece de resistance’nis of course, the big final fight between Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren which isnsatisfying. By the way, Dolph Lundgren is completely over the top as “GR-13”nthe crazed UNISOL who goes on a rampage, killing women and children, cuttingnoff peoples ears and then saying sarcastic lines like “I’m all ears!”. VannDamme plays the good guy, he plays the role with a naivete and a vulnerabilitynthat goes in clash with Lundgren’s whacked out performance.

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nThe film ended up reminding me of a couple of films, likenfor example Robocop (1987) because just like officer Alex Murphy worked for thenpolice department in Robocop, these Unisol’s used to be soldiers for the U.S.nArmy. In both films the robots/zombies are experimental in nature and in bothnfilms the units in question begin to remember when they used to be human, so theirnhuman memories come rushing in at some point and clash with their roboticnnatures. But most of all Universal Soldier felt a bit like The Terminator (1984),nsome scenes seem to be copy pasted from both Terminator films. Even the musicalnscore sounds like the pounding electrical sounds from The Terminatornsoundtrack. All these similarities with The Terminator franchise make perfectnsense when we take in consideration that this film was produced by MarionKassar, one of the biggest producers to ever walk through Hollywood and also thenguys behind Carolco Pictures and one of their biggest hits: Terminator 2: JudgmentnDay (1991). By the time Universal Soldier was being made, Carolco Pictures was kneendeep in debt, and so they needed for Universal Soldier to be a huge hit, ifnnot, it would go completely bankrupt. Now here’s something I’ll never understand,nhow a studio can have a hit as huge as T2 yet still manage to be bankrupt? Inguess it goes to show how deep in debt these guys get in order to make thesenbig budget movies. It also shows that to play the Hollywood game you have tonhave nerves of freaking steel. So yeah, a lot was riding on this film; a wholenfreaking studio to be precise! Thankfully, though Universal Soldier wasn’t asnbig a hit as they expected, it did make its money back in the U.S. with somenhealthy earnings from abroad. So with the success of Universal Soldier and ancouple of other hits like Cliffhanger (1993) and Stargate (1994), CarolconPictures kept on living for a couple of more years, until the dreadful year of 1995,nwhen they decided to produce Renny Harlin’s Cutthroat Island (1995), a filmnthat ended up being a gargantuan failure and also the last nail on CarolconPictures coffin.

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nSo anyhow, what we got here ladies and gents is a decentnaction flick from the time when action flicks where still violent and graphic; whennHollywood produced violence unabashedly. Sadly, those days are gone and we’renleft with washed out action pictures that are nothing like the blood drenched,nexplosion filled action films of the 80’s and early 90’s. By the way, the dvd includesnsome nifty extras including a retrospective featurette in which Van Dammage andnLundgren muse about their experiences making the film, also, it includes thenoriginal ending which was a whole lot grimmer then the one we actually got, it’snworth a watch. This film was followed by a bunch of lesser sequels likenUniversal Soldier 2: Brothers in Arms (1998), Universal Soldier: The Return (1999),nUniversal Soldier Regeneration (2009) and Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning (2012),nthis last one reunited Van Damme and Lundgren once again, alas in a far smallerntake on the Universal Soldiers universe. Now don’t ask me about these cheap assnsequels because I’ve never bothered seeing them, they all look like they’re notnworth my time, but this first one? A decent action flick which served as anstepping stone for Emmerich’s career.

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nRating: 3 ½ out of 4 

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