Universal Soldier Reviews
Top CriticI suppose there is a market for this sort of thing among bubblebrained adolescents of all ages, but it takes a good chase scene indeed to rouse me from the lethargy induced by dozens and dozens of essentially similar sequences.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
BrianOrndorf.com
There's a decent bit of escapism in here somewhere, but Emmerich doesn't possess the finesse to make the material rampage as it should.
Full Review
| Original Score: C-
rec.arts.movies.reviews
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.
Mostly this is an amalgam of ideas, images and whole scenes lifted from other movies.
Though the idea is dumb enough to be fun, director Roland Emmerich does the Terminator thing without much style, and the two stars bash into each other but never connect.
Sci-Fi Movie Page
Even with this early movie, [Emmerich] had a propensity for stealing clichés from other movies...
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Leaves behind almost as many derisive laughs as dead bodies.
Laramie Movie Scope
In the end, the main drawback is the brainlessness of the story and the lack of a believable emotional payoff.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Austin Chronicle
Universal Soldier may flex its muscles at every opportunity, but it's still second-rate Schwarzenegger.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Mr. Lundgren, who glowers his way all too convincingly through the role of a rabid bully, may well be the only man in the universe who can make Mr. Van Damme look like an actor.
TV Guide's Movie Guide
With no real plot tying them together, the impressively staged big scenes become empty exercises in logistics, while the smaller scenes never develop any momentum.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
