Soldier (1998)
Director: Paul Anderson Cast: Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Jason Isaacs, Connie Neilsen, Gary Busey, Sean Pertwee, Danny Turner Screenplay: David Webb Peoples Producers: Jerry Weintraub Runtime: 100 min. US Distribution: Warner Bros. Rated R: violence, language
By Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)
>From the director of Event Horizon comes Soldier, a bland and uninspired action film, flowing with richly-textured cliches and a soothingly sensual story with almost no originality whatsoever. Paul Anderson, whose last film is far superior to this one, unfortunately forgot that action films need innovation to survive. But Soldier, penned by Blade Runner writer David Webb Peoples, merely begins with an interesting idea and regresses quickly into a competently-made bore. Not even a mute Kurt Russell can inspire a glimpse life in the film.
The best moments are early on, when we meet our hero, Todd, as a young boy. He and other young males are forced to go through military training that begins at birth and ends in the late teen years. The training is harsh and grueling, and enforces simple rules like "mercy is for the weak." The military breeds the boys to be emotionless killing machines; this is one of the interesting ideas in the film, for most movies about amoral monsters take the morally easy route by making the monsters not quite human in some way (The Terminator comes to mind). That's about as far as the originality goes, for Todd (played by Russell as an adult) and his fellow soldiers are soon replaced by bigger and faster superhuman soldiers, genetically engineered by Colonel Mekum (Jason Isaacs).
Thought to be dead, Todd is dumped on the garbage planet of Arcadia (you know it's bad when the planets have Star Wars-like themes); while there, he meets a peaceful band of garbage people, the most prominent members being Mace (Sean Pertwee), his beautiful wife Sandra (Connie Neilsen), and their mute son. Lucky for the film, the military decides to test their new soldiers on Arcadia, assuming that no one lives there (and certainly having no idea that Todd is still alive). Todd, naturally, becomes the only force capable of standing up against the superhuman maniacs. And he bonds with the mute kid.
And, unfortunately, there's not much else to say about it. Soldier isn't downright awful; Anderson, though clearly not at his best, is incapable of making an ugly picture. The special effects are good, and the sets are nice (much of the garbage planet is convincingly done). The digital effects are also swell, and the action sequences are pretty square. The problem is that you, I, and everyone else has seen all of this before. Stuff explodes. People die. The hero wins. I mean, come on -- familiarity is okay, but Soldier is so familiar that it really just strikes us as boring.
If there's anything interesting aside from the setup, it's the acting. Russell is always a watchable performer, and he plays Todd the way Todd needs to be played -- silently, and with no emotion. It's hard to say whether or not Russell took the role seriously, because there isn't enough characterization to show a significant change in whatever small personality he has. Backup performances from Neilsen and Pertwee both exceed the quality of the material, while Jason Isaacs is mildly amusing in his dreadfully cliched role (as the head military guy who refuses to listen to reason).
If I sound lost for words, that's because I am: Soldier is a standard action picture. It's too loud to be considered serious science fiction (everything in the film explodes at some point), and since Anderson relies on hollow shots of Todd crying or Todd staring to convey depth, I wouldn't be surprised to find that Peoples' script was a little more thought-provoking than the film. It's not a loathsome movie -- there's nothing morally objectionable in its content (except, maybe, that the film is action pornography that pretends to have depth, but that's an entirely different subject). It's likely that most will describe Soldier as "just another action film," and, with that in mind, you can decide for yourself whether or not it's worth your time.
** out of **** (5/10, C)
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Nathaniel R. Atcheson
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