Many great movies have been created by partnerships. Look back across Hollywood's glittering history and you'll see names like Powell and Pressburger, Spielberg and Lucas, Simpson and Bruckheimer, Golan and Globus. Add to this list the greats of 1990's big-budget spectacle, Emmerich and Devlin. Of course all great artists have their detractors and this is certainly true of the producer/director team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. Well, for those of you who found that Independence Day was bogged down by scientific accuracy, that Godzilla spent too long slavishly pandering to fanboys, that The Patriot sacrificed plot and action to telling the historical truth, Steamed Prawn Buns proudly presents a review of the pair's first collaboration; a stripped-down all-action rollercoaster thrill ride entitled Universal Soldier.

In a damp jungle that is apparently Vietnam, an American grunt with a curious French accent moves gingerly through the undergrowth. This is Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and he has good reason to be anxious; his Sergeant, Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren), has gone crazy. Apart from making himself a fetching necklace of human ears Scott's madness is manifested by trying to get Luc to kill a couple of Vietcong kids. Luc, being the hero of the movie, isn't about to do that and so he and Scott manage to kill each other instead. A helicopter turns up carrying a no-good army type who radios his base with some sinister comments about 'perfect candidates'. This leads to a neat moment when the actor's credits appear on-screen over shots of them being zipped into body bags. This is a pretty cool touch and sadly the best bit of the movie.

We switch to The Present Day™. Terrorists are threatening to blow up a dam somewhere in America. US Army Col. Perry (Ed O'Ross) prepares to send in the latest in crack commando infiltration units, the Universal Soldiers. Interestingly, the UniSol designated GR44 looks a lot like the late Luc Deveraux, and more worrying is GR13, a dead (ha!) ringer for the sociopath Sgt. Scott. GRs 44 and 13 infiltrate the dam while GR76 (Ralf Moeller, the big Germanic guy from Gladiator) sneaks in disguised as a repairman (is there a section in the Yellow Pages for Hydroelectric Dam Repair?). The three UniSols manage to slaughter the terrorists but GR76 is killed in the process.

The UniSol unit returns to mobile HQ (a really cool expanding truck) and we discover that their bunking arrangements are far from standard. They sit in a cryogenic chamber while memory-erasing chemicals are injected directly into their brains. Perry and his sniveling scientific aide Woodward (Leon Rippy) express concern that GR44 seemed to have some kind of 'Nam flashback during the mission, which is supposed to be impossible due to the drugs. On the other hand they don't appear too bothered that GR13 seems to like beating terrorist scum to death rather more than his colleagues, though we in the audience suitably take note. Enter nosy female TV reporter Veronica Roberts (Ally Walker), who is a trifle concerned that Col. Perry claims no UniSols were harmed when she saw GR76 being wheeled out with some new lead body jewellery. Sneaking up on the UniSol base she discovers GR76 in a coffin of ice and starts snapping pictures. Imagine her surprise when the really quite dead-looking trooper comes back to life and grabs her. The commotion rouses Perry and the UniSols and for a second it looks like the plucky reporter is on the wrong end of a summary execution, but at the last minute GR44 remembers who he used to be (Luc, of course) and saves her. The pair goes on the run, hotly pursued by the other UniSols.

As they travel, Veronica discovers that Luc is possessed of incredible speed and strength, and also the worrying tendency to get overheated and then lie in a bath of ice to cool down. He is doing just that at a motel when the other UniSols attack, but Luc fights them off and the twosome escape again. Unfortunately the commotion from the motel attack alerts some Suits In Washington™ who order the UniSol project shut down. Col. Perry admits to Woodward "the experiments were not authorised!" This got me to wondering; what sort of person one day decides 'what this Man's Army needs is a bunch of zombie grunts with no memory. But I'll never get authorisation so I'll just create the unit myself.' Anyway, I guess that would be that - if it wasn't for the small matter of GR13 having remembered he is Sergeant Andrew Scott, US Army and, oh yes, a psycho nut job. Scott has other ideas about the mission and is determined to track down Luc, and if that means killing Perry, so much the better.

So Scott chases Luc and 'Ron across the USA and the numbers of designated UniSol and scientist victims are whittled down. There are also the obligatory ‘beating up dumb rednecks’ scenes, one for each of our muscle-bound leading men. After much action packed hoo-ha our heroes make it to the rest home of Dr. Christopher Gregor (Jerry Orbach), a retired scientist who Veronica has discovered created the Universal Soldiers. Gregor explains that by hyper-accelerating the dead soldiers' metabolism they were not only restored to life, they also had enhanced strength, speed and endurance. I'm not altogether sure how one goes about accelerating the metabolism of a dead guy, but then I'm not a scientist.

From here we move on to the farm of Luc's parents, who are French immigrants (gotta explain the accent thing, right?). Domestic bliss is all around - until Scott turns up with a new ear necklace, some grenades, an overdose of strength-enhancing drugs and a big chip on his shoulder. It looks like time for the big final throwdown, and muscles a-rippling the last two surviving UniSols go head-to-head until only one is still standing.

I figure that the World's scientists must have been quite worried when the Swedish Meatball and the Sprout From Brussels appeared in a film together. The suckage of their individual back catalogues multiplied by each other could have caused a cosmic singularity of such sucky power that the entire universe would be dragged to its doom in milliseconds. Lucky for the universe then that Universal Soldier is merely Quite Bad.

As Terminator/Robocop rip-offs go, U.S. isn't as terrible as it might have been. As a Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle, it borders on the tolerable. As an Emmerich/Devlin film, it's damn near genius. It's only when taken as a regular movie that the whole thing falls down somewhat. Like all Dean n' Roland Joints the plot holes are both massive and numerous, but that's hardly unique for a mainstream film of this vintage. What we want is ACTION!!! What we get is... action. Sure, the truck chases, big explosions, shootouts and fist-fights are all here under the supervision of legendary James Bond stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong, but none of them are terribly interesting. The final fight between JCVD and Lundgren needed to be spectacular, but ends up consisting of Dolph throwing Jean-Claude about until the latter eventually remembers he knows karate. Then the inevitable jumping spinning back kick comes into play and the Swede is dispatched rather too easily. The setting for the fight is pretty poor also; not a lot of action ambiance to be had in a barn. In fact a lack of budget means that the same criticism I applied to Masters Of The Universe last week holds true here. Most of the settings are rather dull practical locations: diner, farm, motel, retirement home etc. This doesn't help to reinforce the sci-fi action theme and the film just becomes another plodding beat 'em up.

I know it's not normally a wise approach to discuss the acting in a Jean-Claude Van Damme film, but what the Hell. The UniSols are generally required to do little more than look blank, and they picked the right guy for the job. As the film progresses he is required to do a bit more than just stare about vacantly, and it's here where he comes unstuck as usual. Lundgren, on the other hand, isn't too bad. He seems to be having fun with playing a villain for once, and while I doubt the RSC is trying to get hold of his agent he manages to create an enjoyably nasty character. Ally Walker does quite well as the stereotypical nosy reporter chick, and I love Jerry Orbach in anything - yes, even Dirty Dancing.

Two appalling made for TV sequels followed the film, Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms and Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business, in which JCVD was replaced with an even more hopeless actor named Matt Battaglia. The first of these featured a 'special appearance by Jeff Wincott' as Luc's brother Eric Deveraux (and when the star of Martial Law 3 starts getting vanity credits, your movie's in trouble) and Burt Reynolds as a villainous government type. The second sequel even featured a nod to equal opportunities with a female UniSol, but then copped out by not having her sit around naked while recharging like the guys have to. Amazingly ol' Jean-Claude went one better; his Universal Soldier: The Return is actually worse than either of these two cinematic dogs.

I should point out that Emmerich and Devlin weren't involved with any of the sequels, having moved on to such prestige projects as computer-generated spiders chasing David Arquette around a goldmine. Like all great movie partnerships, they know a hit when they see one.

Dave Thomas, 6^th June 2003