ROLAND EMMERICH
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB. USA, 1992. StudioCanal, Carolco Pictures, IndieProd Company Productions, Centropolis Film Productions. Story by Richard Rothstein, Christopher Leitch, Screenplay by Dean Devlin. Cinematography by Karl Walter Lindenlaub. Produced by Craig Baumgarten, Joel B. Michaels, Allen Shapiro. Music by Christopher Franke. Production Design by Holger Gross. Costume Design by Joseph A. Porro. Film Editing by Michael J. Duthie.
Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme in Universal Soldier.
Lame ripoff of Terminator 2 has Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren play soldiers who kill each other in the Vietnam war after Lundgren goes insane and starts making necklaces out of ears. Decades later they are still alive, having been resurrected by a top-secret government science project that combines human flesh with cyborg technology to create the strongest and sharpest soldiers to deal with high-tension situations. Unfortunately there’s a glitch in the program and Van Damme starts to have flashbacks of his former life, going rogue with a mouthy television reporter (Ally Walker) at about the same time that Lundgren’s psychotic personality starts to resurface. It would be fun if it maintained the level of silly adventure that it opens with, but Roland Emmerich bogs the film down in uneven character development that has Van Damme searching for his soul a la Robocop while Lundgren is performing a hilarious robo-villain in a bad B movie. Walker is the worst of them all, giving a terribly weak performance that makes Van Damme come off classy and intelligent by comparison.
