Subject: Review: Soldier (1998)

From: Steve Kong <[email-masked]>
Date: 4 Nov 1998 03:50:41 GMT

SOLDIER (1998)

A film review by Steve Kong
Edited by Mark O'Hara
Copyright 1998 Steve Kong

In the spirit of David Webb Peoples’s economy of words with Kurt Russell’s
part in Soldier, I’m going to write this review with less sentences than
lines Russell had in Soldier. I’m attempting to write this review in less
than 24 sentences.

Russell is Todd, a soldier raised from birth to kill and only kill. When
Todd is deemed obsolete, he is dump onto a forsaken garbage planet and left
to rot. Todd discovers a group of outcasts on the planet and begins to
regain his humanity. Todd’s replacement soldiers come to the planet and try
to kill everyone, but Todd saves the people.

Let’s just get the formalities out of the way: Soldier is one of the worst
movies of 1998, ranking right up there with The Avengers and Knock Off.

Russell, who is supposed to be a trained killer, takes his part a little to
seriously. His mute and bland performance – if it can even be called that –
is one of the sore thumbs of this movie. The lines given to Russell by
screenwriter Peoples consist mostly of "Sir!" or some other one-word
phrase. When he’s not talking, he’s standing around looking like a dolt or
shooting a gun killing people. Not an intensive part for the money that he
was paid.

Soldier’s other sore thumb is director Paul (Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon)
Anderson. Anderson should go back to directing music videos; he hasn’t made
the transition to features films as well as some other music video to
feature film directors. Anderson is not in the same league as David (Alien
3, Se7en, The Game) Fincher, Michael (Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon) Bay,
or Alex (The Crow, Dark City) Proyas.

Soldier is a big ball of testosterone that has no story, no performances,
and no real entertainment value. Of course, I could be wrong because the
two guys sitting in front of me during the showing often threw up there
hands during a killing and yelled things like "Yeeeah!" or "Alriiight!" or
just grunted loudly.

The script by David Webb Peoples’s is thin, which is a shame since
Peoples’s is the co-writer of sci-fi classic Blade Runner.

Women will fear this movie, especially if they’re going to be dragged to it
on a date. Testosterone-laced and numb in the brain, Soldier is a bad
movie. Skip Soldier and save yourself 90 minutes plus admission.

There! A whole review in 23 sentences!

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 Steve Kong                                    [email-masked]
 
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