Van Damme stars in this movie, as a soldier brought back to life as a kind of Terminator 1 style cyborg, who then gets taken and kind of “woken up” by a journalist. Dolph Lundgren plays his main adversary – another member of the same cyborg squad, tasked with bringing Van Damme’s character back in, or killing him.
This movie has a very creative base storyline, with credible lead acting, and the odd awesome scene; but it gets a bit boring towards the end as the writers run out of creativity, which makes for less interesting re-watching.
Fortunately there’s at least one decent sequel to keep you entertained if you enjoyed this movie.
The whole saga, in summary
Safe to say, every movie in the Universal Soldier saga (excluding those that did not feature Van Damme) is about a couple of levels worse than the one before it.
The original was fresh & inspired – it had the potential to be one of the best movies ever made – but it dragged its heels towards the end, with an over extended fight scene that gets boring for rewatchers.
The second movie was also quite creative with the computer taking over, and had some great new cast members (especially Goldberg). Its script was quite one dimensional but it was still a decent movie, with decent cinematography and decent entertainment value throughout.
The third movie had a slightly interesting concept and featured some interesting new cast members, but was quite poorly made. Cold and soul-less, almost like a B movie. At times it seemed like it was about to catch fire but it never really did.
Then the fourth and final movie in the series took coldness & soullessness to a whole new level. It never really seemed like it was ever going to catch fire. It was really a chore to sit through the first hour – I think I must have tried to watch it a few times but switched off early every time – I only tolerated it once for the benefit of this review, so you don’t have to!