What do you get when you team action stars Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV) and Jean Claude Van Damme (Bloodsport)with big explosion movie director extraordinaire Roland Emmerich? Universal Soldier, that's what! One of the biggest, dumbest, and most enjoyable blow'em up real good science fiction/action movie hybrids of the early nineties.

Our two lunkhead leads are a pair of soldiers named Scott (Dolph) and Luc (Van Damme) who were killed will serving in active duty back in the Vietnam war. The American government keeps them in some sort of suspended state so that when the timing is right they can bring these two fine specimens of manhood back to live as the ultimate super soldiers that will in turn be used to fight terrorism.

A reporter named Victoria (Ally Walker) gets wind of who these guys really are and after following them around for a while and keeping tabs on them, she figures out their past. Her camera man ends up dead at the hands of Dolph Lundgren and it's up to Van Damme to overcome his 'programming' and set things right by taking him down and saving the girl and the world from the psychopath that Dolph has become.

Dolph Lundgren shines in the way that only he can shine as the ear collecting psychopathic soldier gone wrong. He chews his way through the scenery with reckless abandon, blowing away everyone else on screen. Though he lacks charisma and doesn't really have a whole lot of true acting talent, he makes the most out of the clichéd script and suits the role and tone of the movie perfectly. Van Damme, likewise, is good in his role. He's a little bit noble and a little bit arrogant as usual, but at the end when he starts to kick people in the head, all is forgiven. In short, the action comes first. The acting is fine for what this movie is (a bigger budget B-movie with lots of shoot outs and explosions) but it really isn't the point of the film. Anyone renting or buying this movie is doing so because they want to see these two titans of bad action films go head to head and wreck lots of stuff in the process and on that level alone, Universal Soldier really delivers.

While at times it does border on self parody in a couple of scenes, the movie starts off at a breakneck pace and doesn't let up until the end, when the inevitable show down between the two leads finally happens. Along the way, as Van Damme uncovers more about the world he's living in, he's shot at, chased down, and hunted like a dog. This allows Emmerich to build up the anticipation for the showdown as we find out more about their respective situations and as we see Lundgren fall deeper and deeper into the abyss of insanity. While from a technical perspective this probably sounds corny (and it is), on a purely 'action movie' level, it works fine. It sets the characters up for what the audience wants and it entertains along the way. So while it may be hard to forgive Emmerich for what he did to Godzilla, it's easy to remember him for Universal Soldier because despite its very obvious shortcomings, logic gaps, and goofy script it provides a great movie to escape into for ninety minutes and in the end, that's really what matters most to me in a film. Universal Soldier is the very definition of big dumb macho fun.

Video:

The anamorphic 2.35.1 widescreen picture is crisp and sharp with a nice, high level of detail present from start to finish. Black levels are strong and stable and the color palette used in the film is reproduced accurately and it looks quite natural. There is some very mild print damage that appears in the form of the occasional speck on the print that was used for this transfer but other than that, everything is in very good shape. Edge enhancement is only visible in a few scenes and even then it's not too distracting, and I didn't notice a single solitary compression artifact during the entire running time of the film. Flesh tones look lifelike and natural and the rain, fire and smoke effects are all rendered properly without breaking up.