Universal Solder (1992)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Ally Walker

Private Luc Deveraux and his sadistic sergeant, Andrew Scott, got killed in Vietnam. The army uses their bodies for a secret project – reanimating dead soldiers as deadly obedient cyborgs. However, their memories come back too.

The film is pretty much a ‘Terminator’ wannabe, as the plot is similar – just simplified. This film doesn’t require much from the audience in the form of brain cells, as it is a plain and simple premise where they love destroying things.

The action scenes are very well done, especially the bus chase scene towards the end, which also has some great aerial photography. The rest are pretty much shoot or blow em up scenes, which ain’t a bad thing. Its entertaining. Unfortunately I found the film very cheesy at times – in both dialogue and actions from the cast. And why must the extras always be such dicks? The restaurant scene in particular was just stupid. Then there’s the cliched moronic motel owner. There was just too much stupidity to fully enjoy this film. In fact, the film became almost unwatchable at one point no thanks to all this stupidity. The huge truck used in the film was impressive, though. Ultimately the film did have a satisfying ending.

The film was a big box office success, earning $102 million on a $23 million budget.