Subject: Review: Soldier (1998)

From: Craig Roush <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Nov 1998 06:27:47 GMT

SOLDIER

* 1/2 (out of 4) - a below average movie

Release Date: October 23, 1998
Starring: Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Connie Nielsen, Sean Pertwee,
Michael Chiklis, Gary Busey, Jason Isaacs
Directed by: Paul Anderson
Distributed by: Warner Brothers
MPAA Rating: R (strong violence, brief language) 
URL: http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio/reviews/1998/soldier.htm

For those interested in the true spirit of moviemaking - or what's left
of it in mainstream Hollywood - movie which are star vehicles are
terrible things. As a rule, the ignore general principles of cinema
because they are not made to advance the media but rather to advance the
career of a particular actor. An actor might be chosen on the up-and-up,
to give him exposure; or he might be chosen on the way down to hand him
a paycheck. Generally, though, the actor doesn't matter, and SOLDIER,
the latest from the beleaguered Warner Brothers, exemplifies this: the
picture lacks pizazz. 

The star for the vehicle in this case is Kurt Russell, otherwise known
as the man of thirty words or less. Russell plays Todd, a human trained
from birth in the ways of waging war and becoming emotionally distanced
from the carnage he has wrought. The movie lets us see this degenerate
process, but by the time the real plot starts, we're into Todd's later
years. He's about to be replaced by a new breed of soldiers, ones who,
instead of being trained *from* birth, are genetically selected *before*
birth. The pride of this class - Caine 607 (Jason Scott Lee) - will be
our villain, and you know he's the villain because he has a staring
contest with our hero near the movie's start. 

Between the two leads, less than a full typed page of dialogue is
spoken, and it's possible to imagine a script which is ninety percent
stage direction. Director Paul Anderson, who helmed last year's icy
thriller, EVENT HORIZON, doesn't show any inventiveness here and instead
is content to let the actions play out on screen ad nauseam. Todd, upon
being replaced, is left to die on a garbage planet; but in order to
stretch the running time out, the villains return to the garbage planet
on a "routine patrol" and set the stage for the final firefight. Events
are predictable from the time that the setups are made, and neither
Anderson nor scriptwriter David Peoples attempts to show any
creativeness here. 

The most annoying plot facet is the reason that the whole of the movie
comes to be: Todd fails to show physical superiority against Caine - in
fact, not even Todd and two of his companions can best the baddie - but
near the end of the movie he shows remarkable prowess with automatic
weaponry. It's not as though Todd undergoes any significant character
changes throughout the plot of the story, and so the plot has a very
canned feeling about it. The best route through this disaster is to take
it lighthearted in spirit, and treat it as a parody of typical action
fare, like UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. A strict interpretation, however, reveals
an unmistakeable and unforgiveable lack of style, class, or substance;
and by next year, a large percentage of the people who have seen this
will have taped it off of network television.

-- 
Craig Roush
[email-masked]
--
Kinnopio's Movie Reviews
http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio