UNIVERSAL SOLDIER
Film comments by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
- Victor Halpern created the zombie film with the 1932 WHITE ZOMBIE. He pretty much lucked out. The film is poverty-row all the way. It has cheap sets, low production values, and bad acting. But some of its images are undeniably very effective and it manages the feel of a nightmare. Like CARNIVAL OF SOULS, the film just clicks somehow. But was it luck or skill? Four years later he made his second zombie film and it sank like a stone. The idea just did not have appeal. REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES was about bringing dead soldiers back to life as zombies so they could be the ultimate fighting soldiers. So UNIVERSAL SOLDIER is the second film that idea has sunk. Well, admittedly, it is other problems that sink UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, but it is interesting that this idea was used before.
- Van Damme is Belgian. He has a Flemish accent, sort of guttural and Germanic. Maybe I am not that good with accents. But I can tell you his accent is neither Cajun nor Creole. His parents in the film certainly don't have accents like his. So what gives? How did he end up with this accent? Maybe we'll be hearing that Arnold Schwarzenegger has been cast as Sergeant Rock!
- I guess Van Damme is now officially Carolco Action Figure(tm). Carolco seems to cut these guys out with cookie cutters. They seem to be martial artists with foreign accents, and the way some people habitually smoke after sex, they pun after killing people. I think they got the idea from James Bond films.
- Nice photography of Hoover/Boulder Dam. Also it is impressive to see someone running down the side. To me that is more impressive than all the acrobatic kicking which mercifully is saved until the final reel.
- Why does the opening sequence remind me of PLATOON?
- It is always nice to see Jerry Orbach, even if this film underuses his
talents.
- I guess when you die you forget how to eat, you forget many of your polysyllabic words, and you pick up a funny accent. You learn not to worry about your friends getting shot as long as they don't smoke and they remember to buckle up. The after-life must be a lot weirder than anyone imagined.
- I give it a low 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com
.
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