Post by stefancrosscoe on Oct 8, 2017 13:22:35 GMT
"Are we having fun yet?"
Two Vietnam veterans Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Andrew Scott (Dolph Lungren) has been given a second chance in life, as they become an important but dangerous part in the military's latest top secret, high-tech program called UniSol. Where the bodies of former soldiers are reanimated and brought back as the "perfect" killing machine. The only downside of this experiment, is that the UniSol program do have one big and nasty side effect, which is that some of the reanimated soldiers seems to be having difficulties of forgetting their own experiences within the brutal battlefields in war, and that is something which will come back to haunt the American military in most extreme and violent ways, as the weapon of the future ends up turning against their own creator.
A classic, badass early 90s sci-fi/action movie where Jean- Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren teams up as two former Vietnam war rivals that is brought back to life as part of a groundbreaking military experiment that is supposed to be the ultimate fighting unit, and where the soldiers are to be without fear, mercy or any sign of mental or physical weaknesses. However their gruesome past is one thing that is not erased as easily, and which is something that will give the American military a hard time to cover up, especially when the "secret" weapon suddenly decides to rebel against their own makers and go on a bloodthirsty rampage.
I love this kind of action films, and while Van Damme was at the peak of his action stardom/commercial heyday, it is Dolph who ends up stealing the show as the ruthless Sgt. Andrew Scott, a former war veteran who have completely lost his mind and it might just be Lundgren's finest hour as an villain (yes, even beating out his own Ivan Drago).
Michael Jai White had a part as one of the UniSol soldiers, and would go on an star as the main villain SETH in the disappointing sequel Universal Soldier: The Return (1999).
Since then, two more movies have been made, both much better than the second one, and where Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009) turned out be one of the best and most enjoyable action surprises in recent years, where both Van Damme and Lundgren comes back in style, and would later on repeat their parts in the fourth chapter called Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012).
I think there also have been a couple of DTV "sequels" released later on in the 90s, as I remember back in 2013 I stumbled upon a DVD with the title Universal Soldier 3 but it looked very bad, only judging by the cover, so I did not end up buying it.