Film Review: UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (1992, Roland Emmerich)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 102  minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Jean-Claude Van Damme (BLOODSPORT, KICKBOXER), Dolph Lundgren (MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, ROCKY IV), Ally Walker (SONS OF ANARCHY, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING), Jerry Orbach (LAW AND ORDER, DIRTY DANCING), Leon Rippy (STARGATE, THE PATRIOT), Rance Howard (Ron's dad, FORCED TO KILL, CHINATOWN), Ed O'Ross (LETHAL WEAPON, RED HEAT), Eric Norris (son of Chuck, DELTA FORCE, TOP DOG), Tiny Lister (EXTREME PREJUDICE, JACKIE BROWN), Michael Jai White (SPAWN,  BLACK DYNAMITE).  Music by Christopher Franke (member of Tangerine Dream, MCBAIN, THE TOMMYKNOCKERS).
Tag-line: "The ultimate weapons of the future have just declared war... on each other."
Best one-liner:  "Say goodnight, asshole!"  –"Good night, asshole!"

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER.  Oh yeah.  This is probably the movie that should have been called CYBORG.  For starters, it's actually about cyborgs, unlike CYBORG, which is actually about post-apocalyptic fashion-conscious nomads who happen to be named after popular guitar brands.  But let me get back to UNIVERSAL SOLDIER.  We've got Van Damme as 'Luc Deveraux,' an ambiguously Belgian-American soldier who died in Vietnam while fighting his mortal enemy Dolph Lundgren (as 'Andrew Scott,' an ambiguously Swedish-American soldier.)  Then, their bodies are reanimated and turned into cyborgs by Jerry Orbach, and then they continue to fight each other, all the way to the Grand Canyon.  Toss in an endless bunch of TERMINATOR homages (and rip-off elements), an obligatory truck vs. bus chase, a grocery store shoot out:

 a blown up gas station:

 Technically, it's not an action movie unless they blow up a rustic, Southwestern gas station.

and that's pretty much the movie.  But what a movie it is.  I mean, it came from the minds who made THE HITCHHIKER– what do you expect?  (Note that I said THE HITCHHIKER, not THE HITCHER.)  As I often say, it's the little things that make a movie special, and I'm about to name a few of them.

Where to begin– well, let's see... how about the fact that Dolph Lundgren's sole character motivation seems to be the desire to make human ear-necklaces, and then make groan-inducing puns about them.


In fact, maybe this movie should have been entitled EAR AND LOATHING IN THE GRAND CANYON or THE SWEET EARAFTER or something, because I'm starting to think that UNIVERSAL SOLDIER is too classy a name for this thing.  I mean, it's presumably purloined from a 1960s Canadian folk rock song.  Eh, no matter.

Anyway, Dolph runs rampant across the greater American Southwest, trying to hunt down Van Damme and delivering soliloquies such as "Well, I'm fighting this thing man, it's like kick ass or kiss ass, and I'm busting heads!"

He steals rednecks' belts,

and at one point, a dummy of Dolph flies through the front windshield of a car, prompting the one-liner, "He should have buckled up."

Above all, Dolph realizes what movie he is in, and he's having a hell of a lot of fun with it.  He's given more to do than, say, in ROCKY IV, and he knows that the line "Now where are we gonna shoot her?  In the stomach?  Naaah.  In the chest?  Noooo...  I think... we... should shoot her... IN THE HEAD!" is ridiculous.  I mean, the man was a chemical engineering Fulbright scholar.  So he does his cartoonish best.  I only mention this, because on the opposite side of the coin is a man who's taking this material seriously.  Very seriously.  And that is the subtle majesty of Jean-Claude Van Damme.



Oh, no!

Van Damme is an Actor, with a capital A.  Don't believe me?  I offer proof:


Sometimes Acting requires a long, lingering shot of Van Damme's ass cheeks.

 The immediate aftermath of a long, lingering shot of Van Damme's ass cheeks.

Sometimes Acting requires a plot point that Van Damme must get naked and cover himself in ice every two hours.

 Insert one of Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze one-liners here.

And sometimes Acting requires THIS, the context and precise nature of which I shall refuse to explain:

 Make sure nobody gets poked in the eye or anything?

I love how almost every JCVD film feels that, despite whatever other mind-boggling suspensions of disbelief are in play, his accent must be addressed.

Later, he's revealed to have vaguely Cajun heritage.  Also, his dad is Rance Howard.  Which, I think makes him Clint Howard's brother.  But I digress.

There's also a wonderful plot element that means JCVD's cyborg-self is always hungry.  This leads to him eating an entire diner's worth of food, which, when he has no money to pay for the feast, leads to a brawl with the chef and several patrons, and some lunch-related one-liners are thrown in there, too.

After kick-blasting everyone into submission, he gets his hands on a complimentary plastic basket of bar popcorn, and the look on his face may very well be the purest distillation of "childish happiness" ever captured on film, at least since Michael Jackson got to live out his "claymation duets and giant transforming robot saving the world" fantasies in MOONWALKER. I mean, look at him:

How could you not be charmed by that kiddie-level sincerity?  Awwww, allllllright– Give him the popcorn, says the audience.  Give him ALL the popcorn.  He earned it.  (Ask me later about my conspiracy theory that JCVD was paid for his role in this film exclusively in popcorn.)

Anyway, it all leads to a final, ridiculous martial arts duel that ends with one of our two combatants suffering a Lucio Fulci-style impalement and then being SHREDDED TO DEATH BY A HAY BALER.  If that's not worth four stars, I'm not quite sure what is.  

Thanks for everything, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER.  Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Also, many further thanks to the wondrous featurette on the DVD called "A Tale of Two Titans," which features interviews with Dolph and JCVD, ridiculous low-budget re-enactment cutaways of everything they're talking about, JCVD doing a Menahem Golan impersonation, Dolph plugging his new production company "Thor Pictures," and the following archival photos of them as youngsters!

Television Review: THE HITCHHIKER- 'Striptease' (1985, Jerry Ciccoritti)

Stars: 4 of 5. Running Time: 24 minutes. Notable Cast or Crew: John Glover (52 PICK-UP, GREMLINS 2, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS), Donna Goodhand (X-MEN), Jill Hennessy (CROSSING JORDAN, ROBOCOP 3), Victor Ertmanis (BRAINSCAN, STORM OF THE CENTURY), Frank Adamson (SHORT CIRCUIT 2, DOLORES CLAIBORNE), Lawrence Bayne (BLACK ROBE, GETTING GOTTI). In my continuing series of HITCHHIKER reviews of episodes featuring some of my favorite people- I submit to you: STRIPTEASE, starring the inimitable John Glover.
A lot of these HITCHHIKER episodes abandon the 'horror' or 'thriller' setup entirely, settling for a straight-up character study, which, since John Glover is involved, is a real good thing. I'm not sure what the title refers to, unless it's a metaphorical 'striptease of the soul' that Glover is performing for us. It's certainly within the realm of possibility. Playing a full-time troublemaker and semi-public recluse, Glover's Miles Duchet wanders through this episode, first clashing with whomever he can, and then backtracking and wallowing in self pity. It's a stunning portrayal of an artist at war with himself and the world, a sort of diary of a misanthrope. I really have no idea why this is a HITCHHIKER episode. ... Oh yeah!– it's so that the tale could be enhanced by the astute, nuanced musings of the Hitchhiker himself!
"Miles Duchet is a man steeped in the anger and bitterness of a life spent too alone. At some point in every life, someone will appear to crack our armor of loneliness. The trouble is, that person may be hard to recognize and the moment is often fleeting..." Oh, you hitchhikin' sonofabitch. I'll bet this episode hit close to home for you. Solitude, loneliness, all that jazz. But I think all that highway wanderin' has rattled your brain– instead of listening to you, why don't I look at the face of John Glover, which renders everything you've said reductive and redundant:
Also––uh, I see your Confederate flag patch, Hitchhiker. It's been noted.

Anyway, the episode proceeds to show us Glover- rejecting the world and being rejected by it: a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Glover: despondent.

The boss: a real shitbag.

We see him berated by his boss ("Maybe that's from using that brain too much," "thinking isn't what you're paid to do," "we're runnin' a business here!," etc., etc.) and immediately spurning the nearest sympathetic ear. Next, Glover calls up an ex and theatrically threatens suicide.

Failing in that noble endeavor, and not for the first time, he hits the mean streets and meaner dives, picking fights with brawny strangers and spitting repugnant, self-righteous venom.

"YOU LOOKING FOR A FIGHT?! TAKE YOUR BEST SHOT, SCUMFACE!" Then, in a self-pitying 180-degree turn, he searches for companionship in the form of some old art buddies who know his asshole tendencies all too well. They allow him to accompany them because, well, they're assholes, too. And why pass up front-row seats to the most pathetic spectacle in town?

The most pathetic spectacle in town.

They're headed for drinks with the newest flavor-of-the-month-toast-of-the-art-world who happens to be involved with Glover's ex (Jill Hennessy). Yeah, his former buddies have a pretty good idea what'll happen. It starts off with the wounded puppy routine:

but ends, predictably, with an inappropriate makeout session between the smarmy new lovers
and a bitter outburst from Glover which ends with him, literally, on the floor, choking on his own bile. In a final humiliation, the grotesque extravaganza ends with Glover begging the ex for fifty dollars- which he actually gets- though, I suppose the subtext is something along the lines of 'this fifty dollar bill carries with it the unspoken promise that I never again have to see your raggedy ass.' Moving on to the next bar (and the next bleary-eyed confrontation), Glover strikes up a conversation with a barfly (Donna Goodhand) who seems to find her current existence just as intolerable as Glover does his. In a rare moment of self-reflection, Glover explains his true outlook on life: he is the a dog who snaps at you when you try to pet him- an unfortunate specimen who inspires in others something of a 'reverse food chain' of regurgitation and contempt- truly the gift which keeps on giving.

But somewhere behind that mutual self-hatred is a kind of magnetism- and they end up connecting-

-until the next morning when Glover says "Thanks for a really hot night- leave your number and I'll pass it around." While that in and of itself would have been a fine ending, there's still more- as she leaves the apartment, he has a change of heart and realizes, I suppose, that he is a human being after all. But it's too late- and, shall we say... tragedy strikes...

And now with the rebuttal- The Hitchhiker:

"Deep down, Miles Duchet longed for a connection. But he was so accustomed to pushing people away that he didn't understand when love had penetrated his defense and, sadly for him, fragile feelings treated once with scorn never allow for a second chance." I have a hard time getting it up to be that angry at you today, Hitchhiker, but you're totallly killin' my buzz. I think I pity you. Or maybe I'm still just confused as to why this episode was entitled STRIPTEASE. In closing, it's a fine character study and one which overcomes any weaknesses in the writing through John Glover's tour de force performance of anguished sleaze and oily discontent. He is the man who pounds his head against the wall... and then wonders 'from where does this sanguinary ooze flow?' I can't praise Glover enough- if an actor ever shared a complete connection to the material at hand, it's him.

Television Review: THE HITCHHIKER- 'Last Scene' (1986, Paul Verhoeven)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 30 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Peter Coyote (E.T., THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN, Almodovar's KIKA), LaGena Hart (NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET, MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY), Garwin Sanford (DEAD BANG, THE FLY II), Tom Heaton (APRIL FOOL'S DAY, THE BOY WHO COULD FLY).
Best one-liner: I don't know. Everything the Hitchhiker says.

What a better way to ease out of Rutger Hauer week, than to switch gears and do a Paul Verhoeven-directed episode of THE HITCHHIKER.

Verhoeven. Fresh off of FLESH + BLOOD and about to make ROBOCOP. There's some points for the plus column. Then, THE HITCHHIKER. It kinda taps into some of the same imagery as THE HITCHER. Horror + hitchhiking, yeah. L'il Hauer connection right there. And finally, there's the Hitchhiker himself. Hey, he's almost as good as Rutger Hauer, and he kinda looks like him, too, right? Well, maybe if Rutger Hauer had a bad date with a Flowbee and a propensity for flannel, and instead of terrorizing C. Thomas Howell, he just sat around on the roadside and made limp, cretinous observations about the matters at hand? Nevermind. I apologize. Maybe I'm too hard on the Hitchhiker. Maybe he'll step it up a notch with Verhoeven at the reins. Let's find out:

Five seconds in and we already know it's a Verhoeven flick.

Now the script is fun, but draws quite a bit on De Palma's BODY DOUBLE, and ends up, like nearly every episode of THE HITCHHIKER, being somewhat predictable. But Verhoeven is more than up to the task, and he injects it with some stirring imagery, much of which is influenced by William Friedkin's music video for Laura Branigan's "Self Control."

It was truly the Golden Age of the music video- sleazy dancers, lustrous neon, and snazzy costumes- in fact, BODY DOUBLE itself had tread similar ground a year prior with the Frankie Goes to Hollywood "Relax" setpiece. Paul "I make the movies America deserves" Verhoeven taps into a middle ground- he (naturally) embraces the more sordid elements, but clearly delights in the collision of vapid, self-important characters and yucks it up at the inherent hollowness of American pop culture (and THE HITCHHIKER itself?).

The plot is as follows- rookie filmmaker Peter Coyote's in the midst of a film which, as I said, bears more than passing similarities to BODY DOUBLE.

Things aren't going so well, and his lead actress (LaGena Hart) isn't demonstrating the depth necessary to pull off the film's crucial LAST SCENE.

The money men are getting nervous, and the more she tries to 'act,' the worse she gets. A desperate Coyote must take drastic measures- maybe she'd be better if she wasn't acting? Maybe all this movie needs is the terror to be REAL. Of course, such a gambit could always backfire...

I suppose there's shades here of Paul Bartel's quintessential 1968 short (which he remade as an AMAZING STORIES episode), THE SECRET CINEMA, whereupon a woman realizes that her entire life is a TRUMAN SHOW-esque exercise in cinematic cruelty.

As the Hitchhiker says, "Making movies can be a little like magic- manufacturing illusions and manipulating the way people feel. But when you fool around with what is and isn't real, you run the risk of being tricked by your own sleight of hand." Thanks, Mom.

It's times like these where I really appreciate the Cryptkeeper. He probably would've just said something like "FRIGHTS, camera, HACK-tion! I'm ready for my GROSS-up! Eeeeh-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-heeeeeee!" And I would have been totally satisfied with that.

It develops into an enjoyably-paced quasi-meta-slasher that furnishes us with a fairly satisfying missing link between Verhoven's 1983 THE FOURTH MAN and his 1992 BASIC INSTINCT, with one scene in particular even foreshadowing the denouement of the latter film. The episode ends with a showdown at a swank n' sweaty nightclub, full of unusual, violent objets d'neon-art.


Sex and car crashes? Cronenberg and Verhoeven unknowingly cross paths again...

There's a great little bizarre moment as a spandexed, presumably well-oiled Spiderman dancer twirls about a less-than-impressed Peter Coyote. I can totally see Verhoeven carefully choreographing this throwaway interaction.



Anyway, life imitates art, somebody gets the last laugh, and the episode is over.


Thoughts? Hitchhiker?


"He bent the light and the shadows and called it truth. He used people like they were creatures of clay. But the truth, when it's bent, has a way of snapping back. And the creatures created, well, they often have the last laugh." Huh. That's actually not that bad, Hitchhiker. I mean we're not talking Rod Serling-level, but I think you'd have snared yourself an 'A' in a sixth grade language arts class, for sure. We may make a third-tier Hauer out of you yet! (Currently a fourth-tier Hauer.)

-Sean Gill

Television Review: THE HITCHHIKER- 'W.G.O.D.' (1985, Mike Hodges)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 26 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Directed by Mike Hodges (GET CARTER, PULP). Starring Gary Busey, Geraldine Page (THE BEGUILED, THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL, INTERIORS), Robert Ito (SOYLENT GREEN, THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI). Written by Tom Baum (who did CARNY with Gary Busey and Jodie Foster).
Best one-liner: See review.

Well, folks, it's that time again. Time for more HITCHHIKER. Today, we've got a curious episode- one that takes itself seriously and, surprisingly, deserves to be taken seriously. It comes to us courtesy of director Mike Hodges, writer Tom Baum, and stars Gary Busey and Geraldine Page- altogether higher standards of production than us HITCHHIKER viewers are accustomed to.

Our story centers around a hardcore, evangelical radio preacher (on the AM frequency of WGOD, naturally) played by one Mr. Gary Busey. He truly pours his body, heart, and soul into this performance. He is connected- he's electrifying, terrifying, and borderline possessed. It's just the sort of performance which convinces me that if he wasn't perceived as something of a whack job by the community, he'd be one of the most respected, acclaimed actors working today. (Thank God he got an Oscar nomination while he was still reasonably normal; now they have no choice but to invite him back as an attendee, year after year!)

We begin with a leisurely helicopter shot, gliding above the landscape surrounding a radio station- I'm unsure if it's meant to be God's perspective or the POV of radio waves, but we descend to Earth to find Busey answering the phones and preaching up a storm. It's a joy to watch- kind of like when Burgess Meredith is riffin' on the English language in THE MANITOU. Words and sheer physicality emanate from Busey with natural, demented vigor. For a moment, I wondered if perhaps now we can imagine what it would have been like to watch Mozart go bananas on a harpischord in his prime. "THE AIRWAVES BELONG TO GOD!" "Can ya hear me, Dade County?!" "JEEEEEEE-SUS!" "Tower of power! Tower of power!" "How may Gawwwwwwd help you?"

Note the upcoming callers: 'Child Abuser,' 'Fatty,' and 'Seduced and Abandoned.'

Advice to a serial-adulterer: "Now I know you're hot for this man! And the only married man you're not hot for is your husband...am I lyin'? Dump this turkey!" Before things can reach transfigurative levels, we get a nasty little dose of reality.

"No matter how big he is, there's one caller up there he doesn't want to hear from."

What is this wetness? Something is dripping. It almost feels like an enormous, soggy... towel has been draped upon me like a shroud. Wait- Hitchhiker, do you know anything about this?

Back in the studio, some investigative journalists (led by Robert Ito) arrive and announce their intention to do a piece on the Reverend Busey. Busey bristles: "You just remember here- God's the story, not me, and He's got nothin' to hide!" Busey naturally slips his actual personality into the character, and, in its own way, it only makes his performance all the more spot-on. Like Busey, the Reverend is the sort of man who greets strangers with a hearty slap on the back and a friendly, toothy smile. But even at this early point in the narrative, Busey allows us a glimpse of something deeply damaged lurking in the shadows beneath the Reverend's glossy exterior. Ito's reporter reveals that he's an agnostic to which Busey replies- "That's a pretty glib attitude you're ridin'– it may not get you into hey-ven!"

Unusual events begin to transpire inside the radio station, beginning with some aural feedback that can only be described as some kind of supernatural transference. A perturbed Busey leads the reporters away from station headquarters and to his family home, and finally convinces them to leave him alone. It must be noted that Busey tours the town in a ginormous white luxury car featuring a fittingly absurd hood ornament:


Once inside, we're entreated to an inkling of the Reverend's upbringing as he ascends the stairs to a space which recalls childhood repression and psychological imprisonment.

We meet his mother (played by Geraldine Page, widely considered to be one of the greatest actresses of all time) who listens incessantly to recordings of her dead son (and the Reverend's brother) eerily singing. Despite some elements of cliché, it's actually kind of scary.


Busey heads to a rally where he riles up the locals and makes anti-scientific pronouncements such as "God wants you to have faith in him, not chemicals!," and anti-abortion statements like "I don't want a dead Jesus! I DON'T WANT A DEAD JESUS!!!" Needless to say, Busey is fantastic.

That evening, at home, Busey receives more frightening transmissions through his television. Suspecting the "TV people" of "tamperin' with my machinery!," a crazed Busey braves a thunderstorm to return to his station, where (literally?) all hell breaks loose.



I won't reveal too much about what happens next, but there's a few moments perhaps inspired by HAUSU (or at least THE SHINING), and we notably see, in my opinion, the first genuine scare in the entire HITCHHIKER series. (But it has more to do with the high stakes raised through the performances of Busey and Page than any trappings of 'scariness.') Then, after a satisfying conclusion which I shan't go into, guess what?

Yeah, we're all done here.

Despite your best efforts, Hitchhiker: four stars.

-Sean Gill