By Frankie Dees Nov 6, 2008, 13:13 GMT
A decent early-nineties bit of action bombast that pitted Jean-Claude Van Damme against Dolph Lundgren in what is probably the best action effort of their respective careers (granted, not high praise) and much like the plot, Lion's Gate revives the film with a great high-def transfer for this Blu-Ray release.
Coming a long way from their early Blu-Ray efforts (anybody in the market for a 'Total Recall' Blu-Ray?), Lion's Gate makes this comparatively low-budget 20 million flick shine in high-def and even adds a few cool extras like a pop-up trivia track to boot. Now they got me pumped for some of their other catalog action releases - oh yes, 'The Running Man' will be mine.
Director Roland Emmerich's first American film, whom went on to direct 'Stargate, 'Independence Day', and, ahem, 'Godzilla', this pic shows Emmerich's early knack for achieving a lot of bang for the buck with well-captured action sequences and a pre-Michael Bay penchant for blowing stuff up.
A Vietnam-set prologue sets up an adversarial relationship between two soldiers, Luc Devreaux (JCVD) and Sergeant Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren). Scott is going off the deep end, no more in evidence than by his collection of cut-off ears that he's fashioned into a necklace, and wants Devreaux to murder two innocent villagers.
When Devreaux refuses, that sets up a fight between the two where they end killing each other. The body bags get zipped up, the incident is covered up and the story moves two decades ahead.
A new top-secret military program is introduced that is built around 'Universal Soldiers' or 'Unisols', dead soldiers that have been regenerated with their emotionless duties to carry out missions exactly as their told. We're introduced to these soldiers as they dispatch some terrorists that have taken hostages at a dam and their efficient, fault-free methods quickly show what these super-soldiers are capable of.
Already attracting the media, a tough-talking journalist (Ally Walker) shows up late to the story, gets fired, and sets out with her camera guy to dig a little deeper to get her job back. When she unearths that these soldiers are actually regenerated soldiers, she attempts to make a run for it but regenerated Devreaux and Scott set off after them.
Not supposed to have any memory of their past lives, a deja vu situation with the journalist and the camera guy with Scott sets off a flashback for Devreaux and he rescues the journalist and tears off on his own with the complete program and Andrew Scott, whose own insane flashbacks of Devreaux being a traitor are being relived, hot on their trail. Bullets, Grenades, Balletic high kicks, and the requisite Van Damme bare-ass scene all await.
Not high art obviously but for fans of the action films of yore – Reagan-era pics that didn’t shy away from a little bit of that ‘ol ultra-violence – then ‘Universal Soldier’ will prove an entertaining watch. Rampant one-liners, extreme violence and a climatic one-on-one at the end are not ignored and Dolph Lundgren is deliriously off-kilter and makes for a wickedly entertaining villain.
Poor Van Damme does all he can to keep up with the Dolph but this is clearly Lundgren’s show. The only other notable performance is from Ally Walker who convinces as an annoying journalist.
The film is presented with a 2.35:1 1080p transfer and the results are surprisingly clean. This is how a catalog release should be done as detail is fabulous with an overall sheen that could even compete with newer releases.
With some great desert landscapes, including the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam, and all sorts of explosions and carnage happening, there’s plenty of eye candy to go around. A lossless DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track is provided and also sparkles for a now sixteen year old film.
Decent special features include a ‘Out of the Blu’ pop-up trivia track that will make a nice watch along with the director, writer and cast commentary. An alternate ending, ‘Guns, Genes and Fighting Machines’ featurette and a ‘Tale of Two Titans’ featurette finish things up.
An enjoyable, if antiquated, action film that thrives on the big, dumb action thrills that proved all the rage twenty decades ago. Fans of Van Damme, Lundgren and the film won’t do much better than this release with some cool extras and great audio/video.
Universal Soldiers [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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