the audience applauded

Lack of good storyline.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Big, dumb, loud, and fun. Four words that could aptly summarise the appeal of this blockbuster movie which proved a hit with audiences back in '92 and spawned three inferior sequels. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER is probably Van Damme's most successful mainstream movie to date and his pairing with Lundgren as the enemy is a good one; Lundgren's height alone gives him the imposing edge over the smaller, tougher Van Damme and their final one-on-one battle is one to remember. Packed with lots of hard-edged violence and some unwanted comic relief from a highly annoying female support (Ally Walker), UNIVERSAL SOLDIER is a movie that gets better as it goes along.At first, the sheer woodenness of Van Damme and Lundgren is inexcusable. I know that they're supposed to be playing emotionless dead robots, but even after they first rebel they seem wooden and unable to even say their lines convincingly. Thankfully this wears off as time goes on and the pair settle down into their roles. In fact Lundgren goes a 360-degree turnaround at the end and actually becomes quite good as the psychotic soldier who believes that he's surrounded by the enemy. Van Damme? Well, here he plays a more sympathetic character than usual which will no doubt endear him to female fans, while still providing the high-kicking action that the fans expect. Ally Walker is terrible, though, as the intensely annoying female lead, and although it's good to see Ed O'Ross make an appearance as a colonel, he's underused and killed off quickly.The flimsy plot strings together a scene of big-budget action sequences (no surprise, as most of Roland Emmerich's films are thus styled, e.g. INDEPENDENCE DAY) which are pretty impressive. From the opening hostage stakeout at the Hoover Dam to the shoot-up at a motel, to the climatic truck chase and the final battle with Van Damme and Lundgren, things just keep getting better and better. The high body count sees lots of people getting shot or killed in nasty ways, and of course there's the usual quota of bullet-shedding and big explosions.Lundgren's method of death at the end of the movie (like you couldn't guess) is highly graphic and unexpected. The loud score is sufficiently adrenaline-pumping to work and the film tries so hard to please that the feeling rubs off on the audience. Although it may be dumb entertainment, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER "delivers the groceries" so to speak and is quite watchable in a forgettable way, in that it passes the time and engages the attention but doesn't leave much impact afterwards. It may be a popcorn movie but it's undoubtedly a well-made one.

Universal Soldier is one of those violent action movies that is much maligned amongst a lot of critics but still popular amongst audiences. Released in 1992, Universal Soldier was a box office success however critics dismissed it as a mindless and derivative action film with over the top violence. I first saw Universal Soldier when it first premiered on TV as a 10 year old back in 1994 and I have always considered this movie to be a fun an entertaining movie. Not only that, you cannot deny that Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as the star leads boosted its eye candy appeal.Universal Soldier starts off in Vietnam in 1969 where Private Luc Deveraux (Jean Claude Van Damme) has discovered a village in which US soldiers and Vietnamese villagers have been brutally murdered with their ears severed off. The person responsible for the massacre is the platoon Sergeant Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren in a cracking performance as the villain) who has kept the severed ears as a necklace and is also holding a young Vietnamese couple hostage. Luc Deveraux tries to reason with the deranged Andrew Scott however the couple end up being killed and both Deveraux and Scott shoot each other to death. Deveraux and Scott's corpses are recovered by a second U.S. Special Forces squad and cryogenically frozen, their deaths covered up as "missing in action". Deveraux and Scott are revived without memories of their previous lives and are selected for the "Universal Soldier" program, an elite counter terrorism unit. Also known as UniSols, they are genetically augmented soldiers with enhanced healing abilities and superior strength, but also have a tendency to overheat and shut down. They are given a neural serum to keep their minds susceptible and their previous memories suppressed. Fast forward to 1992 and the UniSols are deployed to resolve a hostage situation in which a number of armed hostiles are taken a number of hostages at Hoover Dam and have killed a number of hostages and police officers. Deveraux's callsign is GR13 and Scott has been assigned GR44. The situation is resolved however there is some flaws that start to surface, when Deveraux becomes unresponsive after having a flashback and Scott is seen using excessive force. One of the technicians, Woodward (Leon Rippy), wants to remove Devereaux for further analysis, but UniSol commander Colonel Perry (Ed O'Ross) refuses and insists there is no problem. After being fired, television news journalist Veronica Roberts (Ally Walker) attempts to get her job back by trespassing onto the military base to further investigate the UniSol project along with her cameraman. After they are detained by Deveraux and Scott, Scott executes the cameraman in cold blood and Deveraux escapes with Veronica. Deveraux along with Veronica must uncover his past life and how he was resurrected, and how the Universal Soldier project came to light in the 1960's by Dr. Christopher Gregor (Jerry Orbach). Unbeknownst to Colonel Perry and everyone else, Scott slowly regains his psychotic behaviour and spearheads the mission to kill Deveraux and Veronica.A lot of people saw Universal Soldier as a rip off of the Terminator movies and the plot as unoriginal. I didn't see it that way nor was it a concern for me. I liked all of it. In particular, the butt kicking old school action was enjoyable and Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren were fantastic as the main leads. Van Damme was still at his height of his popularity and his 360 kicks are still on display. Dolph's physical prowess was also at his best and he has still maintained his physical abilities many years later.Director Roland Emmerich who later became well known for blockbusters such as Independence Day (1996) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) does a quality job in one of his early movies that helped gain him recognition.I didn't care for any of the sequels, they were just pure rubbish. Universal Soldier: The Return (1999) was one of the worst movies that I had the misfortune to see and I refuse to see the rest of the direct to DVD sequels that have since followed.Universal Soldier is pure action packed eye candy and you certainly can't go wrong with Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as the main attraction. Although it may be a bit dated now, many years later I still have a soft spot for Universal Soldier. Ignore the critics and ignore the plot, just sit back and enjoy the action packed fun.8/10.

'Shared universes' are kind of in vogue these days, largely thanks to Marvel's superheroes movies. However, if one film was supposedly happening in the same world as another back in the early nineties, I'd wager that 'Universal Soldier' would be happening while the Terminator and John Connor busted Sarah out of that mental institution.Yes, both films are made by the same production company and some of the same producers are behind the two of them, however Universal Solider will never quite be remembered as fondly as Arnie's second cyborg outing. T2 had bigger stars, better effects and a deeper plot, but there's no denying that the two films share the same 'vibe.' Van-Damme plays a Vietnam soldier, killed in action during the war, and then resurrected by a black-ops military agency as a 'super soldier,' used for thwarting terrorists. Yes, feel free to ignore what happened to Van-Damme's corpse during the twenty-five or so years between death and revival. This would be all well and good if it wasn't for the fact that the same unit also revived Van-Damme's borderline psychotic commanding officer, played (amazingly!) by Dolph Lundgren. Now, these two bad boys had a history of animosity between the pair of them when they were alive, so old grievances are soon revived along with the soldiers' bodies and the two go head to head.And it's great fun – violent, action-packed, big, dumb, stupid fun. And it knows it. Like T2, there's actually some nice moments of humour which are never overused and do help to lighten the mood and give it a 'comic-book feel.' Both lead actors have been criticised over the years of being little more than muscle men with no real acting ability. However, in my opinion, both shine here. Van-Damme is the good guy, but never boring due to his naïve personality. He can't really remember what he was and what he's here for and has a childlike quality in the new world he's found himself in. Lundgren is just psychotic. In know this is just a loud, over-the-top sci-fi film, but, in terms of lunatic badguys, he's right up there with them.Maybe Universal Solider is mainly for guys, especially those who (now) enjoy The Expendables-type movies which bask in the glories of the silly old action films of yesteryear. It's not T2, but it's a nice little comedian piece to it.

The story isn't all that original and is reminiscent of Terminator and many other movies, but who cares? It's Dolph vs. Jean-Claude Van Damme and it has one of my favourite fight scenes in the history of cinema. Dolph's bad guy death is the greatest of all time: "You're discharged Sarge".It marked the beginning of the ascent for the mighty Roland Emmerich/Dean Devlin combo, as they showed their love of B-grade science fiction (dead soldiers brought back to life to fight!) with an assured hand at both carnage and comedy. Van Damme shines as a lethal innocent, a side to his acting that really helped to set him apart from the ever invulnerable likes of Seagal and Schwarzenegger. There's a genuinely sweet sense of naivety to Luc Deveraux, marked with the existential tragedy of being a man out of his own time, which makes his plight even more compelling, especially knowing that he was killed for trying to do the right thing. I hold that it's the same quality that makes Jet Li so great in the likes of Unleashed, but it's a role that really helped to humanise and differentiate Van Damme from the crowd. I'd be remiss not to mention the mighty Lundgren, too, as deranged Andrew Scott (a man, it seems, who just won't stay dead), who fills the running time with endless quotes that I'm still partial to impersonating, from "Do you hear me?" to "It's empty!" It's Dolph's greatest performance, and the sheer mania, combined with his penchant for necklaces made of body parts, is just superb.