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Universal Soldier

Universal Soldier

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Dolph Villain
Review: A must-see action film. One of Dolph Lundgren's best performances. He plays a really great psycho villain; no cardboard performance here (at least not from Dolph). The action in the movie is non-stop and Dolph has some good one-liners that rival Arnold. Van Damme's performance is on target in some parts and lame in others.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A great film, a pretty good DVD.
Review: Action fans can't be without this Damme DVD, this one of his best films. The DVD includes both a teaser and a theatrical trailer; you also find some production notes and a short behind the scenes featurette. The movie is displayed in widescreen format and the audio is in Dolby Digital 5.1. I would have liked to see a little more from great action film like this, but at least it didn't get left behind on VHS like so many of the other early nineties action films. Now don't get me wrong this isn't an Oscar winning film but there is something about mindless action films of this caliber you just don't find in current cinema anymore. Some people say that's a good thing, but come on, Van Damme can kick really high!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Movie With A Few Flaws
Review: First of all, if the viewer is looking for a deep, sensitive film, keep looking . . . this is pure action with a dose of sensitivity thrown in to make the main character more appealing. The premise is clever: Technology creates a new breed of supermen to be soldiers to spare the lives of the regular populace. These Unisols are powerful, tireless and self-healing, with neither conscience nor free will to get in the way of being the perfect fighting machines . . . until something goes wrong. Two soldiers who died as mortal enemies---Van Damme's Luc and Dolph Lundgren's Scott---regain their supposedly purged memories and go haywire. Luc simply wants to go home, and enlists a reporter to help him. Scott wants Luc dead, and he'll destroy anyone or anything that gets in his way.

This is a surprisingly good movie, given the genre. Its major weakness, amazingly enough, is not the acting; it's the writing, which leaves some holes in the plot big enough to drive a truck through. The process for creating the Unisols from dead men is glossed over and technically quite weak, especially since this is supposed to be a science-fiction movie. Things are a little too simplistic, with the military predictably the bad guys and the crusading reporter a bit too self-serving and self-righteous.

However, its flaws are minor and are easy to overlook in light of the movie's good qualities. The action sequences are well-choreographed and the special effects are solidly done. One such effect was the removal of body hair from the men playing the artificially enhanced soldiers, which gave them a plastic appearance. The blood, wounds and explosions are all quite realistic and definitely not for the squeamish. By far, the best aspects of this flick are both the special effects and the acting. Ally Walker is both tough and funny as the reporter who helps Luc in his quest for information and his journey home. Dolph Lundgren is creepy and convincing as the psychotic Andrew Scott, with a healthy dose of black humor thrown in with his cruelty. Quite surprisingly, Jean-Claude Van Damme does an excellent job of conveying Luc Devereaux as a vulnerable, almost childlike man emerging from a long nightmare. Since there isn't much dialogue, he uses his facial expressions, particularly his large eyes, and his body language much more effectively than his words. The rest of the cast is also effective and believable in their roles, even the other big hulks they cast as the rest of the soldiers. Like in Terminator, the amount of dialogue is kept to a minimum and therefore the actors' shortcomings are not put on display.

We aren't big Van Damme fans, but found this movie very enjoyable and quite entertaining. It had some humorous moments, and was more intelligent than most of his movies. This DVD was well worth its money in entertainment value.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome
Review: Has to be the best action movie ever made!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A good idea pretty well executed
Review: I like this movie. Roland Emmerich turns out decent work when he starts with a decent idea.

And this movie is based on an extremely cool idea: a secret government project to use the reanimated corpses of dead soldiers as 'UniSols' ('UNIversal SOLdiers'). They're like killer combat zombies -- equipped to receive commands remotely, impervious to pain, quick to heal, and pretty much unstoppable although they tend to overheat if they stay active for too long.

The plot: Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren were in Viet Nam together, Lundgren wacked out and started killing innocent civilians, Van Damme tried to stop him, and they wound up killing each other. (This is all in the first five minutes of the film.) Their corpses were packed in ice and shipped off to the UniSol project, and after the opening credits roll, they're on an antiterrorist mission as part of a S.W.A.T. team from hell. But a few things start to jog their memories, and it isn't long before the two of them are at it again . . .

You don't have to be a particular fan of the Muscles from Brussels to enjoy the concept here, but Van Damme is actually pretty effective in his role. At any rate the story is briskly paced and about as believable as stuff like this ever gets. It's nicely done if you like this sort of thing (which I do).

Ally Walker does nicely here too, as a newswoman who winds up accompanying Van Damme in his, um, travels. If you enjoyed her in _Profiler_ (as I did, and I stopped watching the show after she left), you'll like her in this.

An entertaining action-SF flick, then, and a cut above the usual 'B-movie' fare. This probably isn't Emmerich's best work (it seems to me to try a little too hard to be _The Terminator_), but it's well done.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not Van Damme's best movie, but it's a good one
Review: In "Universal Soldier," Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as a man who was supposedly killed in a war and is revived as a cyborg who is ordered around by the people who made him. Even though he's now mostly a robot, Van Damme keeps seeing flashes of things that happened in the past. These flashbacks turn him against one of his cyborg allies (Dolph Lundgren) and eventually leads to his freedom from being controlled by his creators. But the creators won't let Van Damme go free without them doing everything they can to get him back and under their control once again.

"Universal Soldier" is a good overall movie, but I didn't think it was the best Van Damme movie. The only thing that keeps the movie from being boring are the few fighting sequences and the feud between Van Damme and Lundgren. Jean-Claude Van Damme does one of his best acting jobs in this movie and Dolph Lundgren also did a good job. There is a few fighting sequences in the movie, but when compared to most of the other Van Damme movies, there's really not that much fighting involved in "Universal Soldier." I recommend anybody who likes Van Damme movies or good action movies to get "Universal Soldier." It doesn't have the best script or the best plot, but it is entertaining nonetheless.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Better than I expected...
Review: It came as no suprise that the critics panned "Universal Soldier" upon it's original theatrical release. I always have hated Roland Emmerich films, this being the only one that I hadn't seen in theaters. But I did want to see it now, and the reson was Ally Walker.
I always liked the television show "The Profiler", which aired for sveral years in the mid 90s, and it's re-runs are on today. I always liked the actress who played "Sam", the main character.
Her name is Ally Walker. She hasn't been in many films, but "Universal Soldier" was one of her first, and most well-known.
... For some reason, the huge movie store in my nieborhood had lost thier copy of it, so I bought it on Amazon.com. I was pleasently suprised by the film, and I wish I would have reserved my judjement.
I give it a solid 3 out of 5 stars. This is because not only is Ally Walker great in it, but Van Damme and especially Lundgren are, too. Dolph Lundgren isn't exactly a great actor, but he does well here. For me, Lundgren's bad guy is the most memorable aspect of this film.
The action scenes are solid, and at times quite unique. The main problem with the film is that there is no real explanation of how or why these UniSols were created. How exactly did they do this (bring the dead back to life)? The answer in the film was too brief and simple.
This film will never be a favorite of any film critic. But, if you are looking for a fun Action-Adventure film with three good performances, look no further than "Universal Soldier".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: shocking and pleasing and much more
Review: it gets laughs in its comicness in certain scenes
it gets shocks
like the beginning war scenes and the fight scenes
it gets more interesting as the plot unravels
great actors picked for such roles
the perfect killing machines
one insane in the brain
and one out to save lives that shouldn't be lost in the first place
the diner scene where the soldier orders alot of food and keeps eating and the guy says how you gonna pay for this and the soldier says "I just want to eat, I don't wanna hurt you, then he kicks ass while still enjoying his meal. and his reporter female friend comes in and says "good meal" as a question that is. and he says without words "makes a happy sigh" that's hilarious. and how she looks around and see everyone who got their ass kicked from keeping him from eating his food
priceless movie
worth the watch again and again
I'm glad I saw this on tv when I was younger
and I'm glad I got this on dvd

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: how far will you go to save a hostage?
Review: it starts in vietnam when many soilders die, when only the commondo and french van-damme is still alive, when van-damme sees the commondo he sees a necklace of ears and two innocent hostages, when van-damme argued the gun was pulled out to him ,the commondo and van-damme evutally kill each other, many years later tecnology rebuilt them as killing roberts for the goverment, when the first mission is complete van-damme sees is enemy in his eye, later on in there second mission when the commondo and him are back in a hostage setuation van-damme's meamory come's back and luckily him and the girl get out together, when they know where he is the team come to hunt him and the girl down, van-damme and the girl always luckily run away until they fight back, when the mission is over the commondo takes over command and forces everyone to stick to the mission,at the end it is only van-damme and the commond ready to fight, to know who wins the fight you have to buy the movie.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Ok,Typical Van Damme with a little Sci-fi
Review: It was a decent movie i happen to live where it was filmed see the annotation.Universal Soldier has what almost every Van Damme movie doesn't.Sci-Fi.That's the only thing that makes this vehicle unique.


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