Universal Soldier
Short description
A secret military program revives dead soldiers as near-unstoppable fighters, stripped of their memories and emotions. Two of the subjects are Luc Deveraux and Andrew Scott, American soldiers who killed each other in Vietnam. Brought back roughly a quarter of a century later, they serve in an elite unit deployed against terrorists and other extreme threats. Deveraux's conditioning begins to break down, and fragments of his past return. Scott, meanwhile, recovers his own memories along with the old hatred between them.
Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Deveraux and Dolph Lundgren plays Scott, with Ally Walker as a journalist who becomes involved with the unit and Jerry Orbach as one of the scientists behind the project. Roland Emmerich directed from a screenplay by Dean Devlin, Richard Rothstein and Christopher Leitch. It was the second of the fifteen features Emmerich has directed, following Moon 44 and preceding Stargate.
Released in 1992, the film had a budget of about 23 million dollars and took in roughly 119 million worldwide, a strong return for an action picture of its size. Audiences have generally been warmer toward it than critics: on IMDb it holds 6.1/10 from around 101,000 votes and on TMDB 6.4/10 from about 2,000 votes, while the critics' rating stands at 4.5/10 from 35 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- During the premiere of the original trailer, music from the film "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991) was playing.
- The line "see, they're everywhere" was improvised by Lundgren.
- The final fight scene took three days to film.
- The stunt coordinator for the film was Vic Armstrong – later, Lundgren starred in Vic's directorial debut, "Joshua Tree" (1993).
- Originally, Andrew Davis was supposed to direct, but the producers preferred the European Emmerich, reasoning that a European director would work better with the two European actors.
- A scene was cut from the film in which Lundgren tells a crying child and his mother about the horrors of war – how he slit the throats of Viet Cong soldiers, and so on.
- Screenwriter Ross LaManna worked on the film in its early stages (when it was still called "Crystal Knights").
- The filmmakers initially struggled to decide on a filming location. There were two options: Mexico and Central Europe. But ultimately, the film was shot in the southern United States, in the states of Arizona (the towns of Ashfork, Chloride, and Kingman) and Nevada (Lake Mead).
- The start of the film project was announced back in early 1990, and filming began on August 12, 1991.
- Lundgren met his future wife while filming this movie.
- This was Christopher Van Varenberg's first minor role; he is the son of Jean-Claude Van Damme.
- Originally, the film was to end with both Lundgren and Van Damme being killed by arriving military personnel.
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