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A Major Disappointment

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There was a lot of action in this film, but the part was so difficult to follow because of the back-and-forth action.

Soldier is vastly underrated. It's actually a great movie. I think it may be misunderstood because it is more like an old Western than a modern dystopian SF tale. It conveys the idea that genetically bred soldiers of the future still have something human in them, which can be awakened by the love of community. It certainly portrays the military industrial complex as evil and seeks to inject a sense of humanity into what it means to be a soldier. It could be seen as a morality tale in support of today's soldiers who are increasingly expected to act like robots in hi-tech wars. It juxtaposes the utopian self-supporting family community with the dehumanizing corporate-military machine -- which is unfortunately what many future conflicts may look like. As in a Western of old, the hero is the underdog fighting for the community against overwhelming odds. A one man Seven Samurai. I found it quite moving. The acting, story, sets, music -- all masterful. It's a mystery to me why it did poorly in the boxoffice. I hope Soldier 2 is made with the same cast set 20 years later!

Soldier (1998):Dir: Paul Anderson / Cast: Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Connie Nielsen, Gary Busey, Jason Isaacs: An ugly and repulsive bag of garbage that gives new meaning to the word "cheap." It contains perhaps the worst production all year. I have seen McDonalds commercials that contained better production effects that what is seen here. Title suggests one being born into an uncontrollable environment, such as someone being forced to watch this film. Kurt Russell is trained from birth to become a mindless fighter and comes to realize that fighting is all he knows once he is placed in a camp with peaceful civilians. He doesn't fit in but realizes that other soldiers are set to attack. So we are given endless gory scenes of Russell in combat including a scene where he plunges his fingers in an opponents eye sockets. Story is unrealistic, predictable and totally dense. Director Paul Anderson should not be proud of this or his efforts involved. Russell's dialogue consists of words like, "Duh." Jason Scott Lee makes more noise than most musicians. Other dull performances come from Connie Nielsen because the screenwriter obviously felt that a female lead or damsel is needed. Gary Busey also appears for whatever it is worth, and that is likely not much. This film is a pointless parade of graphic violence that should be smashed with a sledgehammer. Score: 1 / 10

Kurt Russell plays a soldier who has been trained from birth to be a perfect killing machine. When he and his squad are superseded by genetically improved versions, Kurt is left for dead on a hostile 'rubbish dump' of a world where he is found by stranded settlers who help him. When the new super soldiers are sent on a training mission to the same world they are ordered to treat any humans they find as hostile, thus endangering all the colonists. This film could have been a walking cliché, it had all the ingredients; helpless families, pretty girl, even a sick (mute) kid. Add to that the writers claim that the film was a "spiritual sequel to Blade Runner" and I had to watch it if only to debunk such arrogance. To my surprise it turned out to be a well thought out, intelligently scripted, fairly well acted movie. The action scenes were not cgi'd to death and the clichés, whilst undoubtedly there, were not overplayed and one scene, where Kurt Russell shed a tear after being banished from the camp for an unnecessarily violent reaction, was genuinely moving. 'Soldier' will never win any Oscars but it's not a bad movie and I will watch it again.