Frankenstein met the Wolf Man, Zatoichi met Yojimbo, Santo met the Blue Demon - so it was probably inevitable that Jean-Claude Van Damme - the Muscles from Brussels - would eventually come face-to-face with another second-rate action star, Swedish-born Dolph Lundgren, for Universal Soldier (1992). It was only mildly successful at the box office, yet begat an unwanted franchise that, like Lundgren's cyborg soldier, just won't quit, with three sequels already in the can and a fourth on the horizon. Even by lame-brain sci-fi action film standards, Universal Soldier is excessively stupid and it shamelessly, clumsily borrows myriad elements from better films. But as cinematic junk-food - and if RoboCop and The Terminator are popcorn movies then Universal Soldier might be likened to pork rinds - Universal Soldier is entertaining enough, despite one climax too many, one heavily compromised by some last-minute retooling (see below).

The Blu-ray disc looks nice and, as expected, offers pounding audio for those looking to give their home theater systems a workout. There are also some extras of limited interest.

During the Vietnam War, Sgt. Andrew Scott (Lundgren) has become a madman, murdering Vietnamese on both sides as well as men from his own platoon. (But he's not sympathetically nuts because he cuts off everyone's ears and makes a grotesque necklace.) Pvt. Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) arrives on the scene, and the two soldiers immediately kill one another.

Twenty-five years later, a virtually unchanged Deveraux and Scott - now called GR44 and GR13, respectively - are among an elite counter-terrorism unit called Universal Soldiers, UniSols for short. (To me "Unisols" sounds like durable, all-weather shoes, but whatever.) In a pretty good action set piece, the mysterious UniSols storm Hoover Dam to rescue hostages from domestic terrorists. (The never-identified terrorists had demanded the release of some incarcerated colleagues, but what are they doing at the Hoover Dam? They never threaten to blow it up. How do they expect to get away from such an isolated, totally surrounded location? We never find out.)

The UniSols, it turns out, are RoboCop-type cyborgs, half-men/half-machines created from the corpses of dead Vietnam vets by a rogue branch of the military. The Unisols are super-strong and can survive multiple gunshot wounds (which, with no explanation, miraculously heal themselves). Regular injections suppress memories of their past lives, but Deveraux is experiencing flashbacks anyway, while Scott has started using excessive force - and likes it.

Meanwhile, a nosy, chain-smoking television news reporter, porkpie-hat-wearing Veronica Roberts (Ally Walker), does her best Lois Lane imitation and sneaks into the surprisingly unsecured perimeter where the UniSol unit - including a futuristic, super-sized semi which acts as their roaming headquarters - is camped out. When she and her cameraman are discovered, Deveraux and Scott are ordered to bring them in but Scott shoots the cameraman in cold blood and Deveraux, having more flashbacks to Scott's murder of a Vietnamese couple years before, instinctively flees the scene with Veronica.

The film then becomes a Terminator 2 style chase movie (the Schwarzenegger film, also a Carolco production, was released in 1991) with muscular cyborg Deveraux helping Veronica escape the unstoppable, somewhat superior cyborg Scott.

Universal Soldier is derivative in the extreme. Terminator 2 had a comical nude scene with Schwarzenegger, so Universal Soldier offers up a similar one with Van Damme. At the beginning of the film, Scott's character is a little like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, and Deveraux's character is a lost soul trying to reconnect with his past like cyborg cop Murphy in RoboCop. With their one-eyed monocle-like camera-lenses the UniSols are a lot like budget-conscious versions of The Borg from Star Trek, unstoppable cyborgs that debuted on The Next Generation TV series a few years before. And on and on.

Universal Soldier was an early collaboration between co-writer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich, a partnership that has resulted in some of the dumbest high-concept movies since the glory days of Irwin Allen. On Universal Soldier they have an almost awesome disregard for science and storytelling logic. There's virtually no effort to rationalize the fantastic in order to facilitate even minimal suspension of disbelief.

How come Deveraux and Scott don't age? If their bodies are stored at sub-zero temperatures, how come they don't get frostbite? Why do their wounds heal automatically? Were they kept in cold storage for 25 years then defrosted in modern times, or was this cybernetic technology around during the Vietnam War? How was the UniSol program kept secret from other branches of the government? Where did all the funding come from? Do UniSols eat? What do they do on their day off? When did the U.S. Army start drafting Swedes and Belgians?

Plot holes abound: in one scene Deveraux gets into a fight at a roadside diner because he has no money to pay for the huge lunch he consumes. (How does he digest it with all that technology implanted in his gut? Wait - I don't want to know.) And yet in the very next scene he buys a bus ticket for Veronica to Los Angeles. And even if he did have the money, how could he buy a bus ticket all by himself when it's established such mundane abilities have been zapped from his programming. How is it that the police can easily locate and arrest Deveraux and Veronica, traveling incognito, but can't seem to find mass murderer Scott and his party, who barrel around the American Southwest in a futuristic semi the size of a Brontosaurus? Why all the 1950s automobiles and '50s pop architecture?

Complaints aside, Universal Soldier is representative of the kind of enjoyable dumb action-thriller companies like Cannon had been cranking out only a few years earlier on budgets of just $2-5 million, usually with Charles Bronson as the star. Outfits like Carolco and Centropolis upped the ante on mindless action fodder with more expensive films like the Rambo and Terminator movies, Independence Day and Godzilla, and for a time they had mastered the art of high-concept marketing, turning junky genre films with inflated budgets into must-see "event" pictures. Universal Soldier may be mindless but it's colorful and lively, with good cinematography by Karl Walter Lindenlaub (Rob Roy) and a strong emphasis on bright primary colors.

Van Damme isn't terrible considering he spends much of the film wandering about in confused, somnambulistic state, but it's a trail already well-blazed by Peter Weller, Schwarzenegger and others before him. Even in his limited role Lundgren is stiff and unconvincing; it also sounds like his performance may have been dubbed judging by the clearly enunciated but flat delivery of his lines.

Typical of the leading ladies in Devlin-scripted/Emmerich-directed films, Veronica is an intensely annoying, paper-thin character. She chain-smokes (though Walker poses like a non-smoker) and fusses with her long blonde hair incessantly; she's shallow and acts like a caricature of a Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday -- not at all believable as a serious journalist on any level.

Also of note is the movie's lyrical end title song, "Body Count's in the House," by Ice-T and Ernie-c. Talk about your memorable lyrics:

Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. (YEAH MUTHA FUCKAAAAAA!) Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count, nigga! Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Body Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. Body Count, Body Count. Body Count. Body Count. Body Count. Body Count. Body Count. Body Count. Body Count. Body Count. Awwwwwwwwww shit Body Count's in the house, Body Count. Body Count's in the house, Body Count. Body Count's in the house, Body Count. Body Count's in the house, Body Count. Body Count's in the house, Body Count. Body Count's in the house, Body Count. Body Count's in the house, Body Count. Body Count's in the house, Body Count.

(There's more but I'll leave it to the reader to download the rest of the song into their iPod.)

Video & Audio

Originally a TriStar release of a TriStar/Carolco production now part of the Canal Plus library, Universal Soldier comes to Blu-ray via Lionsgate. The 1080p high-def transfer retains the original Panavision (2.35:1) scope screen shape, which is bright and sharp. (Original theatrical prints were by Technicolor.)

Universal Soldier was originally released in Dolby SR, but more significantly it was also the last film released in CDS, an early digital sound processed quickly supplanted by DTS. On Blu-ray it's 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, which comes to life during the action set pieces, with their requisite explosions and gunfire. For a movie now more than 16 years old, the audio compares not unfavorably with contemporary mixing.

Extra Features

With a single exception, all of the supplements are carry-overs from the October 2004 standard-def DVD, and are presented in standard-def with 4:3 letterboxed film clips: Guns, Genes, and Fighting Machines - The Making of 'Universal Soldier, Tale of Two Titans.

A 13-minute Alternate Ending is included, regrettably not bumped up to high-def. Unlike most such things it's significantly different from the final version of the film. That's not to say it's better than what was eventually used: in some respects it's worse (it steals a bit from The China Syndrome's ending, with a kind of downbeat, Charly-esque air of resignation), but at least it plugs up several loose ends left unexplained in the theatrical version, and gives supporting player Jerry Orbach a bit more to do, though not much more.

Also carried-over from the 2004 DVD is an audio commentary track with Devlin, Emmerich, Van Damme, and Lundgren that's surprisingly dull and unsurprisingly self-congratulatory.

The only new extra is an Out of the Blu pop-up trivia track. I confess to disliking this particular feature, as invariably I get impatient waiting for the next bit of trivia to make its appearance, and then usually disappointed to see that the information is either a) something I knew already or b) never cared about to begin with.

Parting Thoughts

If you're eager to turn your brain off for 102 minutes and escape into a world of dumb but colorful sci-fi action, Universal Soldier fits the bill. Solaris it ain't. It also lacks originality and has plot holes you could drive a UniSol semi through, but it meets the minimum needs of its targeted demographic. Rent It.

Film historian Stuart Galbraith IV's latest book, The Toho Studios Story, is on sale now.