The year is 1969 and during the end of the war, an American squad receives orders to secure a
village against North Vietnamese forces. Under the heavy rain, Private Deveraux comes looking
for his fellow team members, only to find them and a bunch of villagers dead with their ears missing.
Disturbed, he enters a shack to investigate and discovers Sergeant Scott has gone insane
and killed everyone. Scott is wearing a string of severed ears as a necklace and also holding
two young people hostage. Deveraux tries to reason with Scott, saying that the war is over,
but Scott gets furious and shoots the boy before ordering Deveraux to shoot the girl in order to
prove his loyalty. Deveraux refuses, and when Scott moves to do the killing himself, Deveraux
stops him. Then he begins running with her to help her escape, but Scott shoots Deveraux to make him
fall, then throws a grenade at the girl, killing her. An upset Deveraux decides to fight Scott,
only for them to end up shooting each other at the same time and dying. The next morning,
the U.S. Special Forces come by and the commanding officer orders his men to put away the bodies in
ice and to never discuss with anyone the truth of what really happened. Years later in 1992,
the Hoover Dam in Nevada is being taken over by terrorists, who have already killed plenty of
people. Bodies of several civilians are scattered on the roadway, and the police officers who tried
to interfere are now dead by their police cars. There are more civilians taken hostage and the
terrorists keep insisting on their demands. Soon the police are told not to interfere
anymore because the military is sending the Universal Soldiers, an elite counter-terrorism
unit. Among these soldiers there are Deveraux and Scott, who are now called GR44 and GR13. They’ve
been revived with no memory of their previous lives and essentially act like robots, always
following orders without showing any emotion. There’s also a curious crowd gathering nearby
and soon TV news journalist Veronica arrives to cover the story. However because she’s late again,
she ends up being fired. The universal soldiers jump into the water and begin climbing the dam
to sneak inside unnoticed. Deveraux and Scott shoot a few terrorists that are keeping guard,
then they connect the terrorists’ communicators to the team technicians to play a recording loop to
cover for the dead guys. They keep making their way inside, knocking down every guard they see,
but when one of the soldiers finally finds the leaders inside, he immediately gets shot
down. To the terrorists’ surprise, the soldier suddenly moves and begins shooting back as if
the bullets had done nothing to him. Deveraux and Scott soon arrive to finish the other terrorists,
and when Deveraux sees the hostages, he begins getting flashbacks of what happened in Vietnam.
Turning around, he looks at Scott and remembers him as responsible for a tragedy; this distraction
causes him to freeze and ignore radio commands from the control team. Outside, Colonel Perry,
who is in charge of the Universal Soldier project, gives the interviewers a bunch of vague answers.
This awakens Veronica’s curiosity and she decides to follow him, wanting to get this story to get
her job back. Later in the command center, it’s revealed that the soldiers have enhanced healing
abilities and superior strength, but also have a tendency to overheat and shut down, so they
are given a neural serum to keep their minds under control and their old memories suppressed.
The technician team is trying to figure out why Deveraux froze and when they ask him, he begins
describing what happened in Vietnam, which is heard by Scott. The technicians point out it may
be better to remove Scott and Deveraux from the team until they can be further analyzed, but Perry
tells them it’s just a momentary memory lapse and to just erase those memories again with the serum.
Outside the command center, Veronica leaves the car to investigate, ignoring her cameraman’s man
protest about this being too dangerous. She tries sneaking onto the base with a camera, and when
she opens a random box, she’s shocked to discover the body of a wounded soldier. At first he appears
to be dead so she begins taking pictures, but suddenly he wakes up and freaks Veronica out,
causing her to accidentally set off an alarm. Veronica immediately runs and gets in the car
with her cameraman, but the soldiers are sent to capture her and they cause the car to crash and
overturn. The soldiers take the duo out of the car and wait for orders, but when Perry tells them to
take the camera and return to the base, Scott ignores him. Suddenly he shoots the cameraman,
and this triggers Deveraux’s memories again. He hits Scott to stop him from killing Veronica too,
then he drags her away in one of the military cars. Scott shoots at them, but the car doesn’t
stop until Perry orders Deveraux to do so. Having Perry’s voice on the communicator makes Deveraux
fall back into soldier mode, but Veronica takes the headset off and Deveraux can think clearly
again, so they escape in the car. Scott calls Deveraux a traitor like he did in Vietnam,
meaning his memories are coming back too. When Scott is brought back inside, the technicians
say they want to cancel the project because things are obviously not working if a soldier
shot an innocent man. Perry forbids them from doing so, explaining that they’ll go to jail
because the Pentagon doesn’t know about the real nature of the project. Then he announces they’ll
go after Veronica and Deveraux to stop them from revealing the truth, so the team leaves in their
truck. While driving away, Veronica wonders why Deveraux helped her, and he explains his tour is
over and he just wants to go home. Veronica also notices he has a bullet wound, but Deveraux just
sterilizes it with the car lighter. When the car runs out of gas, Deveraux pushes it all the way
to the gas station. Unfortunately the station ran out of gas and their public phone isn’t working,
so the duo decides to rent a room to stay the night at the motel. Meanwhile the special soldiers
are arriving in the area and Scott shoots down the phone lines. In the room, Veronica turns on the
television and is shocked to learn that she’s being framed for the murder of her cameraman.
She tries using the room phone, but it isn’t working either. Deveraux is starting to heat up,
so he takes off his clothes and stands in front of the AC. When Veronica tries leaving the room,
Deveraux follows her, only to suddenly fall down because he feels unwell. Veronica notices he’s
burning up so she takes him to the tub and fills it with ice to help him. This allows him to heal
his wound. Freaking out, Veronica goes to the reception desk only to discover the phone here
isn’t working either, so she decides to go back to the room, not noticing that the special unit
is coming closer. In the room, Deveraux is feeling better and watching tv, which helps him finally
realize that the war is over and decades have passed. At that moment, the universal soldiers
open fire, but Deveraux pushes Veronica down just in time. Then he starts running from room to room
by crashing through the walls and freaking out all the other motel clients. Veronica follows him
and points out they’ll be caught soon, so Deveraux makes a plan. When the special unit comes inside,
they can’t find the duo and assume they’ve lost them, so they leave. It’s then revealed that
they hid in a bed with two civilians, and the duo takes their car keys to escape. The special unit
sees the car leaving and opens fire, but Deveraux drives through the reception and manages to get
away. The next day on the road, Veronica begins asking lots of questions. Deveraux gets upset
because he doesn’t remember anything and needs to stop the car to calm down. After deciding he wants
to know what happened to him, the duo keeps going and arrives at another gas station. Deveraux makes
the owner wait outside and drags Veronica into the shop, where he takes off his clothes. Then he asks
her to check his body for a tracking device and Veronica does so while being rather embarrassed,
causing the owner to overhear them and think they’re doing something naughty. Eventually
Veronica finally finds the tracker on Deveraux’s leg but refuses to hurt him,
so Deveraux uses a knife to make an opening. Veronica is grossed out but still inserts her
fingers in the wound to remove the tracker. Moments later, the special unit arrives at the
gas station and kicks the door down as they open fire. This turns out to be a trap from Deveraux,
who left the tracker there with a bunch of spilled oil. The combination of this oil and
the soldiers’ fire causes the building to explode. While the technicians run out of the truck to put
off the flames that are hurting their soldiers, it’s revealed that Deveraux, Veronica, and the
gas station owner are hiding in the trunks of the cars. The duo takes the chance to sneak into the
truck and steal a bunch of files before getting back in the car and escaping. However Scott
suddenly appears in the back seat and tries to kill Deveraux. The car loses control and crashes,
and the impact sends Scott flying through the window. Because Deveraux had been stubborn
about the use of seatbelts, he and Veronica are fine and quickly get away. Perry decides the
mission is over and tells everyone to get back in the truck to leave. However Scott reveals he
remembers his name and suddenly shoots Perry. Then he goes inside the truck where the technicians are
healing the soldiers and Scott presents them with Perry’s ears. He proceeds to announce the mission
isn’t over and he’s the boss now, but when a technician tries to stop him, he immediately
kills him. Now the others have no choice but to follow Scott’s orders. While the technicians keep
on working on fixing the other soldiers, Scott begins injecting himself with muscle enhancers to
make himself even stronger, he also makes a new ear necklace. When his body starts to heat up,
the technicians tell him to go into the cooling chamber, and they quadruple the serum to knock
him out. However when a technician comes into the chamber to check if their plan worked,
Scott wakes up showing he’s fine and forces the technician to have the injection instead,
which kills him. Meanwhile Deveraux and Veronica stop at a diner to have a bite and look at the
files. Deveraux doesn’t know what to do, so Veronica orders for him before leaving the
table to find a phone and do some calls about a name on the files. Then Deveraux starts eating by
copying what other people are doing, and he likes it so much that he asks for more. The
waitress brings lots of dishes because Deveraux just keeps on eating, but when the waitress asks
him how he’s going to pay, he has no answer. The owner comes over too and tries to punch Deveraux,
who easily dodges him and defeats him with one kick. The other men in the diner try to go after
Deveraux too, but he easily beats them all up and even sends one flying through the window,
which is seen by Veronica. Worried, she comes to check on Deveraux only to find him chilling with
a bowl of popcorn. Later in the evening, Scott stops by a bar and asks for information about
Deveraux and Veronica. A local man makes fun of him and Scott beats him up, terrifying everyone
into answering his questions. Inside the truck, the last technician makes a soldier activate a
grenade, blowing the vehicle up. However Scott doesn’t give up and rescues two fellow soldiers,
then he takes them into a supermarket to put them in the freezer, but unfortunately they don’t make
it. While the last surviving soldier steals and eats raw meat, Scott yells at the civilians,
saying he’ll show them all. At that moment a bunch of guards show up, but Scott kills them
in seconds. In the morning, Deveraux and Veronica arrive at a veteran’s hospital in Utah following a
lead Veronica got from the files. Here they meet Doctor Gregor, the originator of the program,
and the mere sight of his face brings back Deveraux’s memories: he sees himself in
the operation room while Gregor made him a super soldier, but he also remembers his childhood with
his parents. After Gregor tells Veronica about his scientific research, they hear on the news
that Perry is dead and they’re blaming Veronica for this one too. They also see the security
footage from the supermarket and Gregor explains that Scott still thinks he’s in Vietnam fighting
insurgents. Afterward, Veronica says they should expose the story, but Deveraux is tired and just
wants to go home, so he gives her a bus ticket for her to go back to Los Angeles. Veronica takes it
and pretends to get on the bus, but the vehicle leaves without her. Before Deveraux can react,
the duo finds itself surrounded by cops and they get arrested. Moments later, they’re being taken
away in a police convoy, and soon Scott is chasing them in the truck. First he hits a police car and
sends it off the road, then he starts hitting the bus while his partner opens fire. While
Deveraux pushes Veronica down to protect her, the soldiers kill the driver and the bus loses control
until it gets off the road too. Deveraux breaks a seat to take a piece of metal and tries to use it
to pick the lock while Scott keeps on hitting the bus with the truck. Suddenly Scott throws
a grenade inside the bus, but Veronica picks it up and throws it out so it explodes outside. She
does the same with the second grenade he sends, so Scott begins throwing them around the bus instead
to make the explosions damage the vehicle. Then Deveraux finally gains access to the driver seat
and takes over the wheel, getting the bus back on track. He grabs the cop’s gun and pushes Veronica
off the bus before Scott finally hits hard enough to make the vehicle fall. Then he starts pushing
it toward the edge of the cliff, but Deveraux climbs out through the window and shoots Scott’s
last partner before jumping away. Both vehicles end up falling together and exploding when they
crash on the ground. When the other cop from the convoy shows up to arrest them again,
Veronica knocks him down and the duo takes his car to escape. Sometime later, they make it to
Deveraux’s family home in Louisiana. Deveraux gets to reunite with his parents, and Veronica finally
contacts a tv network to reveal the story. In the evening, she leaves the house to meet with some
reporters who will clean her name, but when she gets in the car, the keys are missing. It turns
out they were taken by Scott, who is alive and well. Suddenly the power goes out in the house and
Deveraux hears Scott yelling outside, threatening to kill his parents if Deveraux doesn’t come out
to fight him. Deveraux grabs his father’s hunting weapon before coming to meet Scott, who is holding
Veronica hostage too. A fight begins between both soldiers, but Scott has taken so many
enhancers that Deveraux can’t really hurt him. As he mocks Deveraux for his weakness, Scott takes
another injection and starts beating Deveraux up again, smashing his head against the police car
before dragging him in front of Veronica. Scott tries to shoot her, only to discover the gun is
out of bullets. Veronica uses the opportunity to run away, so Scott throws a grenade at her
to kill her like it happened in Vietnam. Furious, Deveraux tries to attack Scott again, but Scott is
still stronger than him and throws him inside the barn with his parents. Deveraux doesn’t give up
and in the struggle, Scott accidentally drops an enhancing injection, so Deveraux immediately grabs
it and injects himself. Now they’re matched in power, Deveraux can give Scott a fair fight, and
they begin hitting each other with any object they can find in the barn. After repeatedly hitting
Scott in the face, Deveraux kicks him through the wall and sends him back outside, where he kicks
Scott and pushes him into the spikes of a hay harvester. Then Deveraux comes closer to confirm
he won and Scott tries to bring him down too, but Deveraux breaks his wrist and then activates the
harvester to finally kill him for good. After making sure his parents are okay, Deveraux goes
to check on Veronica’s body, only to discover she’s still alive, and they reunite with a hug.