Universal Soldier - Van-Damme’s ‘Terminator 2’

‘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.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one