A Battle-Weary "Soldier" by Homer Yen (c) 1998
Sometime in the not-so-distant future, a new generation of soldiers will be created. Babies are conscripted right after birth and begin a harsh training regimen that spans the entirety of their young lives. They are groomed to become ruthless, strong, and tireless fighting machines. Todd (Kurt Russell) is just one of many of these new breed of soldiers. During a training exercise, soldiers take shooting practice where cardboard cut-outs of both innocent bystanders and enemy troops move left and right. In one particular instance, an enemy soldier shields himself behind an innocent person. While the other soldiers-in-training freeze for a moment to contemplate their shot, Todd, giving only a moment's hesitation, coldly pulls his trigger. The cut-out of both the enemy soldier and the innocent person are obliterated. As everyone else looks at him, he shows no signs of remorse or regret. This soldier will graduate at the top of his class.
There have been many movies that focus on the comeuppance of a soldier and the bitter sacrifices that he makes in fighting for his country, or in this case, his planet. Here, it's not all that different, although it takes place in the future where the weapons do significantly more damage and the landscape seems eternally ravaged by war. Todd evolves into a lethal fighting machine whose emotion and humanity have been stripped away. When he is replaced by an even more potent type of soldier and is subsequently discarded on a planet far away, the story shifts gears and parallels the plight of the war veteran with no place to go. The fight continues inside of him, and here is a person who can not be easily reintroduced into society. Falling upon a settlement on this planet, he is first taken in. They try to teach basic skills such as gardening. Their attempt to assimilate Todd back into normal society injects a little bit of humanity, but Todd's aggressive behavior and alarming tenacity begin to frighten the settlements' denizens. It seems that the only way for Todd to be appreciated is for some battle to take place. And, (no surprise here) an opportunity to show his fighting skills soon presents itself, ironically with a landing party that consists of the upgraded soldiers that replaced him back on Earth.
"Soldier" doesn't break any new ground and could have been easily named Rambo IX if it starred Sylvester Stallone. Yet, for the most part, the film was tolerable. I liked the offbeat choice of casting Kurt Russell as the aging war veteran. And the film wisely decides to keep dialogue at a minimum, allowing it to be a mindless thrill ride. The film's best part showcases a final 25-minute battle pitting the veteran Todd against a platoon of next-generation soldiers. Given its limitations, "Soldier" is all that it can be.
Grade: C+
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews