Retro Review: Soldier (1998)

Soldier
1998
Cast: Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Connie Nielsen, Michael Chiklis, Gary Busey
Genre: Science Fiction Action 
U.S Box Office Gross: over $14 million 

Plot: A soldier is dumped on a waste disposal planet & lives among a community of crash survivors on the planet and takes it upon himself to defend his new home when genetically engineered soldiers are ordered to eliminate the crash survivors 

 

'Attention!'

So I once saw Soldier on TV a long time ago on ITV4 or somewhere where they would air obscure or action B-movies late on Saturday night. I was unimpressed at the time, so viewing it today has things changed since then? 

Actually, I found it to be a tad enjoyable- though if not as entertaining as I thought it would be and I did like it, second time around. I know that Soldier is widely derided and dismissed by a lot of people, and whilst it is not horrible, and it's not perfect, it turned out to be quite a surprise; I found Soldier to be not as bad as its notoriety and negative reputation suggests it is. Paul W.S. Anderson's follow-up and oft-forgotten sci-fi based actioner to space-horror, Event Horizon and 1995's video game movie, Mortal Kombat, as well as penned by the writer of 12 Monkeys starring Bruce Willis, the 80s' classic, Blade Runner and Leviathan, which is one of my cult favourites, the film had a budget of $60 million but it did poorly at the box office in the U.S and clawing back only $14 million. 

Billed as a potential sequel to Blade Runner, Soldier originally had Slyvester Stallone attached to the project until Kurt Russell secured the main role. Bred from birth and after 40 years of service, Sergeant Todd 3465 is replaced by a younger, newer, stronger and faster model Caine 607. Todd is bereft of emotion and feeling -and is programmed to kill. Assumed dead after being dumped and abandoned on another planet, Todd survives and is rescued by a community of refugees, Mace and his wife, Sandra, who have been hiding in the trash heaps for years. 

 

Even with him only uttering like 3 lines of dialogue (104 words), and whilst I missed his trademark wit and onscreen charm that is replaced with emotionless stoicism, and spending the 98-99% of the film with a blank facial expression, Kurt Russell makes up with this by having this muscular frame and alas he is in great physical shape (he worked out 3-4 hours a day for a year in preparation for the role). As Snake Plissken, Jack Burton, Gabe Cash, Kurt oozed charisma, amusement and a wittiness as those characters; alas, to see him take on this cyborg character bereft of those qualities that made those characters memorable to audiences and fans, was not only surprising but perhaps also through his career choices, he has shown he has a knack of being versatile and his career isn't built on playing the same type of role over and over, and in films that weren't all box office hits. Would his performance benefit from his character being better developed with more dialogue and an enriched characterisation? Absolutely. Physically, he was still in his 40s at the time as Todd, and during some good action sequences, Kurt still had what it takes on the action movie front. The remaining cast was okay, but the performances overall weren't that special. 

Soldier is pretty much Universal Soldier version 2.0, with both Kurt and Jason Scott Lee (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, who is also beefed up here) scrapping it out in place of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. Their characters, Todd and Caine 607 are trained to kill without hesitation and question. Oddly also, with the scenes with the young boy and Todd, it reminded me of Robocop 3 in terms of the child befriending a cyborg/robot thing.

The film doesn't rummage through the details in character development, nor explore the story with any depth (Todd is a cold-blooded killer, but this arc is never explicitly addressed). It's all about action and getting from A to B in under 1hr and 30 mins, which it did and it wasn't bad, the pacing was all right. The action itself is generic and atypical one that can be seen in other Sci-fi action movies, particularly those of the 1990s; nothing groundbreaking or spectacular. Soldier just about survives on the back of Kurt Russell - irrespective that his talents and charisma has been acutely reduced in a one-note turn as a cyborg; without Russell, Soldier would be unadorned. 

 

 

 

Final Verdict:

And so, it's not bad-bad; and whilst it is an ambitious-yet flawed attempt by Paul W.S Anderson, given the potential of the premise and plot, Soldier really ought to have been shrewd, as well as more adventurous and entertaining.

Overall: