SOLDIER Review by Victory A. Marasigan http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~vmaras1/reviewsidx.html
_Soldier_ is hands down one of the worst movies a person could ever have to sit through that doesn't have Jean Claude Van Damme in it. I could liken it to the sci-fi cheese that was the Hollywood product-of-choice back in the early 80s, but that would be too much of a compliment. If there is a movie theater in hell, this film is playing there 24 hours a day.
The story, such that there is, revolves around Todd (Kurt Russell), an automaton of a man who has been raised from birth to be a merciless soldier in a not-too-distant ultra-conservative future (is there any other kind?) After years of desensitization at a military academy full of other boys just like him, Todd becomes a ground fighter in a series of wars all over the galaxy. Who the enemies in these wars are is never revealed, but the few glimpses of Todd in battle show that it doesn't matter, because innocent hostages are wiped out as indifferently as the bad guys.
After ten minutes of this nihilistic trash -- yes folks, there's more -- we see Todd as a buff, scarred adult, now so accustomed to the carnage that no confrontation at all causes him to break a sweat. There's a new wrinkle, though. Todd and his brethren are declared obsolete, and a new batch of soldiers takes their place. After losing a sanctioned battle with _Dragon_'s Jason Scott Lee, the seemingly dead Todd is dumped by a flying ice-cube tray (well, that's what is looked like) on a remote garbage planet.
If you predict that Todd meets a bunch of outcast settlers on this planet, and that they band together to fight a bunch of bad guys coming to destroy them, you're way ahead of the game. The renegade society on this trash heap is so clich you half-expect Tina Turner and Master Blaster to come strolling into frame any minute.
It's surprising that _Soldier_ is the brain-child of _Blade Runner_ co-writer David Webb Peoples. Unlike that mind-twisting classic, this film contains just barely enough dialogue to fill about three double-spaced pages. Add into the mix the _Mortal Kombat_'s Paul Anderson inept direction, and it's easy to see how _Soldier_ turned out so bad. And the special effects! Remember the flying steam irons in Hardware Wars?
Gary Busey is in this movie. 'Nuff said.
_Soldier_ is proof that Hollywood still has plenty of bad ideas sitting in its script vaults. That this sad film made it to the silver screen should encourage plenty of aspiring screenwriters out there that there is hope after all. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go weep for the future.
GRADE: F
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