Subject: Review: Soldier (1998)

From: [email-masked] (Ram Samudrala)
Date: 30 Mar 1999 05:41:34 GMT

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Soldier
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/soldier.html

/Soldier/ is mindless entertainment, pretty much devoid of any
substance.  But that has its appeal too.

Sergeant Todd 3465 (Kurt Russell) is one among a line of soldiers who
have been selected at birth and trained since to be efficient and
brutal killing machines.  One day a new Colonel, Mekum (Jason Issacs),
arrives and introduces a new line of soldiers to replace the old ones:
these soldiers have been genetically enhanced and are superior in
intellect, stamina, and strength. To prove his point, Mekum sets one
of the new soldiers against three of the old (including Todd)
resulting in their deaths. Or so the Colonel thinks.

As the bodies are deposited on planet Arcadia 234, designated as a
interstellar garbage dump, Todd regains consciousness and stumbles
into a lost human colony. As his injuries heal, thanks to the care of
the colonists, Todd begins to form bonds with his hosts. However, his
training and violent nature makes him unfit to live in the colony and
he is banished: until the new soldiers arrive on the planet and go
about exterminating everyone on it as a training exercise.  Todd wages
war on the new soldiers led by Mekum to protect the people he cares
about.

There's nothing to be said for acting here: Kurt Russell is as stiff
as a corpse.  The visuals and the setting are pretty good and the
cinematography is what makes the movie bearable.  Any commentary about
war I would make is already done in my review of /Saving Private
Ryan/.  The notion of using genetically enhanced soldiers to wage wars
in the future has been dealt with before: I predict a more Orwellian
scenario along the lines of /Brave New World/ or /Gattaca/ where
there is a class differentiation based on genetic enhancements.  In
the end, rather than make any sort of commentary on the issue of
genetic manipulation, the movie anthropomorphises. Todd is easily able
to defeat almost twenty of the enhanced soldiers, because of his
"street smarts" and human intuition.

Soldier is worth renting on the video if you're looking for a
well-done piece of highly predictable and formulaic entertainment.

Brave New World movie review:
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/brave_new_world.html

Gattaca movie review
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/gattaca.html

Saving Private Ryan movie review
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/saving_private_ryan.html

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