Universal Soldier (1992) - Dir: Roland Emmerich
September 27th, 2006
“I figured you had to be French or something because of your accent.”
“What accent?”
This is an early film in a string of Emmerich/Devlin partnerships, this one happens to be the best too. Van Damme capulted to the bigtime with this film for a brief few years, before returing to B-movie/straight to video fare. This film is very entertaining and has the right mixture of action and comedy moments. Van Damme stars as Luc a Vietnam soldier who gets killed along with psycho soldier Dolph Lundgren. Their bodies are kept on ice for 20 odd years and revived as re-programmed soldiers. Their bodies are preserved by keeping them cool, and their memories are wiped after every mission. The program however is secret even from the government, and a reporter played by Ally Walker is on the case. She goes on the run after taking some snapshots, and is “rescued” by Van Damme, who starts remembering the war and wants to protect her. There are some great comedy moments when Van Damme strips naked to keep cool, and a gratuitous shot for the ladies (had to cover my wife’s eyes at this scene). Van Damme could have been the next Schwarzenegger (this being Van Damme’s “Terminator”), and even surpassed his rival Steven Seagal. However things turned out slightly differently…