Hall of Fame: Luc Deveraux
There are a few awards and accomplishments that can be had in life that are truly remarkable; the Nobel Prize, the Congressional Medal of Honor, and becoming a member of the Bulletproof Action Hall of Fame. For some odd reason, I only have the power to select members of one of those groups and you know that if that weren’t the case then Michael Dudikoff or Steven Seagal would be walking around with a Nobel Prize. For now, I’ll continue to use whatever say I have to highlight the awesomeness of those I deem worthy. Today I get the opportunity to induct our first member of the Bulletproof Action Hall of Fame Class of 2016. A character played multiple times by one of the most popular action stars of all time, Jean Claude Van Damme. Now, join me in welcoming Luc Deveraux to the BPA Hall of Fame!
Our introduction to Luc Deveraux sees him getting killed in Vietnam. That usually isn’t the way we meet a character in any kind of movie but for a movie about formerly dead soldiers being brought back to life, it fits.
The first movie in this series featuring Luc Deveraux is Universal Soldier. To me, it’s one of Jean Claude’s greatest movies and it’s a character that he returns to multiple times. I’m not going to be diving into the film too much but the gist is that Luc was killed in Vietnam and then brought back to life as something of a super soldier for the UniSol program. As the movie moves along we meet his former comrade/enemy/guy who killed him, Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren). It’s important because Scott will be a recurring character in the series and a villain that is among my favorites. Deveraux meets a lady reporter and kinda/sorta falls in love with her. We meet his parents and find out a little about his life before he was killed but we’re mostly just shown how tragic this whole deal has been on Luc. He probably would have been better off dead.
Let’s fast forward to 2009 and find out how Luc Deveraux is doing.
Oh man! He certainly looks like shit but is he doing okay 17 years after the original? The answer is no. Luc has the absolute worst case of PTSD that a man can have. Not only did he die in combat but he was also brought back to life only to continue fighting the same people from before. Talk about demons…
Universal Soldier: Regeneration brought Deveraux back into the world of constantly fighting when the father/son duo of Peter and John Hyams made this super cool direct to video (in the US) film. A mysterious new UniSol is killing people and takes over a nuclear facility and the only way to stop him is to bring Deveraux out of retirement. What Luc doesn’t know is that not only does he have to fight former UFC Heavyweight Chamption Andrei Arlovski, but he’ll also have to re-kill his old buddy Andrew Scott. There’s no better way to mend your old mental wounds than to revisit the exact things that made you crazy in the first place.
With all the crap that Luc Deveraux has been through I would expect him to be nuttier than squirrel turds and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning doesn’t disappoint. Let’s check in on Luc once more:
Good Lord!
I’ve seen Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning described as a noir film, a horror movie, and of course an action movie. Any one of those isn’t wrong but the film really is a combination of multiple genres. Deveraux is now the “bad guy” with BPA favorite Scott Adkins joining the series as the new hero. Adkins’ character awakens from a coma with a memory of Deveraux and his army of de-brainwashed UniSols killing his family and now he wants some serious revenge. Of course, nothing is what it seems and guess what, Andrew Scott is somehow brought back once again! Day of Reckoning has some seriously amazing fight scenes and it officially passes the torch from JCVD to Scott Adkins. It was a really interesting way to take the character from hero to an extremely tortured man.
Wait a sec….I feel like I’m missing something….
Seven years after Luc Deveraux debuted JCVD returned for Universal Soldier: The Return! I specifically left this movie to the end because it’s no longer canon in the series. I’m assuming that most people either forgot it existed or just forgot how the story went in the movie because 10 years later they just pulled a Highlander 2 and erased it from the Universal Soldier timeline.
Deveraux somehow gets his UniSol syndrome reversed and has a child in The Return. He also falls for another lady reporter and seemingly has a happy ending after his big showdowns with Michael Jai White and Bill Goldberg. The film isn’t horrible but it is certainly strange to see the direction that the later films would take with the character instead of this “he’s had his deal reversed and now he’s normal” gimmick.
Luc Deveraux is the character that Van Damme has chosen to revisit the most. It’s a character that has a lot more “meat” on it than anyone would have believed in 1992 and especially since we’ve learned so much more about PTSD in the last 20 years. I think that those of you who haven’t seen Regeneration or Day of Reckoning will be very surprised by how Deveraux really grows and turns into a much more tragic character. It’s Van Damme doing Shakespeare people! That’s why Luc Deveraux is this years first inductee into the BPA Hall of Fame.
