Subject: Review: Soldier (1998)

From: "Harvey S. Karten" <[email-masked]>
Date: 21 Oct 1998 05:03:47 GMT

SOLDIER

 Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D.
 Warner Bros./ Morgan Creek
 Director:  Paul Anderson
 Writer:  David Webb Peoples
 Cast: Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Connie Nielsen, Michael
Chiklis, Gary Busey

   "Soldier" is yet another video game for the big screen which
has momentum and a terrific set going for it.  Otherwise it is
as formulaic as the genre comes, though the ultimate battle is
not between good and evil but between two men who are
merely following orders as per their lifelong training.  One of
the fighters has the moral advantage which insures the
support and cheers of the audience, however.  He has
evolved beyond the role of robosoldier into the beginnings of
a human being after his contact with a pacifist community on
a distant planet.

   The principal action of Paul Anderson's film takes place in
the middle of the next century, with a military operation that
will determine the future of a nice little community that has
built a utopia amid the detritus of a common garbage dump. 
But the story begins from the birth of one particular soldier,
Todd (Kurt Russell), who attends a military school that makes
West Point look like an institution run by the Green party. 
Instruction at this academy includes having the elementary
school boys watch three Doberman Pinchers tear apart a wild
boar, and pits the lads against one another, giving each gold
stars, apparently, for the number of successful, bare-fisted
punches he lands on his opponent.  Needless to say only a
small group survive, but even that elite company are put to a
severe test when a Robosoldier par excellence, Caine 607
(Jason Scott Lee), and a merry band of fighters virtually
annihilate the combatants, making them as obsolete as a B-1
bomber.  Todd is left for dead and dumped on a distant
planet which, for some reason is invaded by the new breed of
fighters with orders to kill every pacifist on the planet.

   For all its intergalactic, sci-fi histrionics, "Soldier" is really a
small-scale venture: in fact, the final battle is really between
just one man, Todd, and a small band of invaders.  Russell, a
fine actor who electrified the movie public with a three-
dimensional role in the under-appreciated "Breakdown," gets
to say very little, but expresses whatever minimal feelings he
has with his eyes.  

   A new study shows that kids really cannot blame their
parents for the way they turn out: at least 50% of their
character is formed by their contact with peers--most of the
rest being by genetic makeup.  Jerry Weintraub, who
produced the film, is eager to show that with the proper
nurturing, even a thirty-something soldier whose only
connection with peers has been brutally aggressive can be
made into a feeling human being once more.  The role of
sustainer and nurturer falls to the lovely Sandra (Connie
Nielsen), who has a son unable to talk since he was bitten by
a snake.  Russell is successful in showing how he and the
community change one another.  As he becomes more
human, more loving, the community realizes the need for
fighting men.  After all you can't defend your land with
flowers.  There's plenty of firepower here, some brutally
violent combat between Russell and Jason Scott Lee, and an
overly sentimental scene to conclude the work that gets some
in the audience laughing at its stickiness.

   If Russell does not get much chance to act, he does
succeed in showing off some powerful biceps and his courage
and ability to do some of his own stunts.  This is a movie
about a shellshocked military man, though it's hardly in a
class with "Regeneration," a recent, sensitive, British offering
about a group of World War I soldiers who are
institutionalized after having broken down psychologically in
the heat of battle.  Nor can "Soldier" be regarded as much of
anti-war treatise; in fact, in pointing out the naivete of the
utopian gardeners and dancers, it is a call for more balance
between Mars and Muse. Todd is, after all, ostracized by and
exiled from the community because they fear his militarism
but is called back when they realize that the pen is not quite
mightier than the sword.  Ultimately, to paraphrase Gertrude
Stein, a video game is a video game is a video game.

Rated R.  Running Time: 95 minutes.(C) 1998 Harvey
Karten