10 Wildly Underrated Action Movies Of The 90s
6. Universal Soldier
![Last Action Hero](https://d2thvodm3xyo6j.cloudfront.net/media/2017/07/5a3cb04b45f5e790-600x338.jpg)
Jean-Claude Van Damme made a lot of garbage movies in the 90s. It's true. But a handful of his post-Kickboxer filmography suffered from audience's expectations that Van Damme's acting had to evolve beyond the stoic delivery and occasional wide-eyed screams he displayed in Bloodsport. Which just doesn't seem fair for a martial arts star.
Ironically, critics blasted JCVD for coming off as "laughably wooden" in this 1992 Roland Emmerich film. For those who haven't seen Universal Soldier, Van Damme plays a robot. So that would be like criticizing Zachary Quinto's performance in Star Trek as "too alien."
More specifically, the Muscles from Brussels plays Luc Devereaux, a reanimated super soldier who died in the Vietnam War, was cryogenically frozen, and then brought back to life as part of a shady military program. Dolph Lundgren plays a similar character, except he's more deranged, more manic, and has a much greater affinity for necklaces made of human ears.
If you can't tell from those descriptions, Universal Soldier is a delightfully absurd movie.
It's the confrontation between these two meaty specimens that drives this part science-fiction, part action, not-quite-blockbuster that's basically a mix of Terminator 2 and Commando. (Except with more spin kicks.) Van Damme displays a goofy kind of charm as an innocent robot learning to act human again, while Lundgren clearly relishes playing an increasingly unhinged, pyschopathic mandroid.