By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you’re a fan of the Terminator movies but want something a little more cheeky, 1992’s Universal Soldier is the next film you’ll want to queue up on Paramount+. Though it was a commercial success at the time of its release, Universal Soldier received a healthy amount of criticism for being a Terminator 2: Judgment Day ripoff– but it actually has a lot going for it because as much as it wants to play it straight, there are a number of laugh-out-loud moments that will keep you wanting to press forward. By the same token, Universal Soldier has such an identity crisis that you really need to know what you’re getting into to fully enjoy its storytelling.
While part of me wants to hate this movie because of its many tonal shifts, I can’t help but appreciate its willingness to break convention and lean into its sense of humor because its entire premise is ridiculous and benefits from its egregious amounts of comic relief.
We Have Terminator 2 At Home
Universal Soldier starts during the height of the Vietnam War, and introduces us to our two soon-to-be foes, Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Sergeant Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren). Scott has been driven mad by the war, causing him to mercilessly torture and kill civilians, which doesn’t sit well with Deveraux, who wants to put a stop to his madness. Fatally shooting each other over this dispute, both soldiers are packed up in ice and shipped off to an undisclosed location.
Waking up decades later and working for the Universal Soldier (UniSol) program, Deveraux and Scott have no recollection of their past lives, and now respond to GR44 and GR13, respectively, after being reprogrammed to follow orders and carry out high-level acts of counter-terrorism for the US military. After catching a glimpse of the hostages during one of his missions, GR44 starts having vivid flashbacks of his past life, including GR44’s crimes against humanity when he was still known as Andrew Scott.
Meanwhile, disgraced journalist Veronica Roberts (Ally Walker) gets caught snooping around UniSol HQ, which results in Commander Colonel Perry (Ed O’Ross) sending his men out to kill her. Caught in the middle of the crossfire, GR44 decides that his new mission is to protect Roberts, while GR13’s new objective becomes to wipe out his former subordinate for helping a traitor.
Tonal Shifts Make For An Interesting Watch
Depending on your expectations going into Universal Soldier you’re either going to love this movie or hate it because it definitely has trouble picking a lane and staying in it. On one hand, you have this intense display of unethical military excess, which leads to an epic chase involving the UniSol leaders and the journalist aiming to expose them so she could reclaim her career. But at the same time there’s this whole thing about how the Universal Soldiers are prone to overheating, which as far as I can tell was only shoehorned into the plot so Jean-Claude Van Damme could be seen naked (I swear he puts this in his contracts before signing onto a film) as he prepares for his ice baths.
Coming to the realization that he may have a tracking device implanted somewhere in his body, GR44 (naked, of course) at one point asks Roberts to inspect his body and “look for something hard” with a completely straight face. Similarly, when GR44 eats hundreds of dollars worth of food at a diner while on the run, a simple misunderstanding about paying the bill results in him beating the ever-living crap out of everybody who has him mistaken for a thief, which serves no purpose in Universal Soldier other than to show off Jean-Claude Van Damme’s fighting skills and elicit a few hearty chuckles.
Streaming Universal Soldier On Paramount+
As much as I want to dunk on Universal Soldier for being a disjointed mess, I fully appreciate what director Roland Emmerich was trying to do. If more focus was placed on the trauma of war, and what it does to people when those horrific memories that were supposedly wiped clean come creeping back in full force, we could have had a poignant story about the dangers of military excess and the ethical implications of such an experiment gone wrong. Instead, we get a movie that plays it straight half of the time, waiting for the right moments to work in some shtick, like GR44 and Roberts’ many communication breakdowns, as the former takes everything she says literally and hilariously misinterprets her intentions every step of the way.
But for some reason Universal Soldier works as is, and much of its entertainment value comes from these miscommunications. If you’re expecting a serious action movie from front to back, you may want to sit this one out. But if you’re looking for an action movie that’s almost too self-aware of the fact that it’s an action movie, then you’ll have a great time streaming Universal Soldier on Paramount+.
And depending on how you feel about this one, there’s plenty of direct-to-video sequels that you can plow through after all is said and done.
