Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
An American soldier who had been killed during the Vietnam War is revived 25 years later by the military as a semi-android, UniSols, a high-tech soldier of the future. After the failure of the initiative to erase all the soldier's memories, he begins to experience flashbacks that are forcing him to recall his past.
Universal Soldier is a solid but formulaic early-90s action sci-fi vehicle built around the Van Damme/Dolph Lundgren rivalry. The plot recycles familiar amnesia-soldier tropes without much depth, and the acting is functional at best — Van Damme and Lundgren deliver physicality over nuance. Cinematography is competent for the era with some well-staged action sequences. The concept of reanimated Vietnam soldiers as super-soldiers gives it a distinctive enough hook to earn above-average novelty, though it doesn't transcend its genre. The ending is a predictable showdown that resolves without surprise, typical of the era's action fare.