Soldier

Rating:
Summary: Quite a surprise........
Review: Kurt Russell as an action star? I know that sounds funny, but after you see this movie, you will believe it. I will admit, I thought this movie was going to bite it hard when it came out. I thought it looked cool, but it had "rental" written all over it. After seeing it years ago, I came away entertained. Which is all that really matters, if you think about it. Now that you can get it for a nice price, I would recommend checking it out.

Kurt Russell plays a bio-engineered soldier. He is chosen from birth and trained to kill. That is his only life he knows. He is shown gruesome violence as a young child. He is trained to have no mercy and no remorse. He is a killing machine made by some sort of government. They take children from birth and literally train them to become ruthless soldiers. When they get to their adult years, they are sent out on the battlefield. They are then the perfect soldiers. Of course, there are some downsides to this. They have no social skills. They have never had emotions toward other human beings. And this is where the movie seperates itself from being a 'B-movie'.

Over time, a new super-soldier is created. One that is literally made from the DNA up. This is where the conflict of the movie arises. Sgt. Todd's (Russell) squad is being replaced by a squad of advanced soldiers that are even better than Russell's. They are led by Caine (Jason Scott Lee). Lee plays a pretty decent villianous character. Even though he is just following orders. The orders are coming down from a higher ranking officer (played by Jason Isaacs). Isaacs seems to enjoy this role of playing the main villian. He never goes over the top, but he definately makes you not like him. Gary Busey actually plays a character that is NOT insane. He plays a general (or something) that is the head of the old soldiers. He is reluctant to switch over to the newer soldiers without them ever being tested in the field. Isaac's character overrules him.

So, Russell is dumped like trash onto some planet that has been 'abandoned' (or so they think), and it only used for waste disposal. Upon waking, he is found by a group of outlanders who are living on the plant. They have formed a sort of colony and live peacefully without interference. It is here that Sgt. Todd must learn some human emotion and traits to live with normal human beings. Of course the bad guys want to test out the new brand of soldiers. They send them on (what they think) is a routine "sweep & clear" mission. Little do they know that Sgt. Todd is still alive and is willing to show them a thing or two.

This is an action movie with some heart to it. I thought this was going to be a Rambo-type movie with Russell in the lead role. I was wrong. He defends his new friends and fights for their survival. Along the way, he learns what it's like to care for other people. One of these people is a woman (the insanely HOT Connie Nielson). Her husband was one of the first to befriend Todd. After his death, he takes it upon himself to protect her and her son.

I liked this movie quite a bit. It's kinda low budget and it is an action film. It's not going to win any awards, but it's way better than I thought it would be. I was surprised how big Kurt Russell got for this movie. He only has like 10-15 lines the whole flick and he plays the 'commando' character well. Honestly, I would not pay $20 for this movie, but for $10 it's a steal. It's a fun, yet simple action movie with a nice side of emotion. When I saw the trailer, I was wondering why the hell Russell would want to do a picture like this. After seeing it, I know why.

Not many special features here to speak of. You get a commentary, production notes, and a trailer. That's it. You can find the movie for around $6.99 now, so I guess I can't complain about the lack of supplements.

Rating:
Summary: Fear . . .Discipline
Review: This is one of the great, unsung science fiction films of recent times. The story revolves around a future where soldiers are segregated and trained from the crib to be merciless, killing machines. Kurt Russel, in a great performance, plays one of these soldiers who are soon to be replaced by a genetically enhanced new breed of soldier. Sgt. Todd 3465 (Russel) is believed killed in a training exercise and disposed of like yesterday's garbage on a waste-disposal planet. He survives, finds refuge amongst a colony of planet refugees, and tries to fit in.

This is, on a very rewarding level, a tremendous action film. Russel's nemesis in the film, Sgt. Caine 607 (played by Jason Scott Lee) is an imposing presence, and the fight scenes between the two are excellent and convincing. The special effects and battle scenes are impressive as well, and really transport you to a harsh, bleak, metallic future.

On another level the film is about the discovery of emotion in the highly trained soldier as he tries to fit into a more normal society. Russel is simply outstanding in the roll, doing an incredible acting job. He speaks a total of about 20 words in the whole film, but his internal struggles are always clear and very moving.

This "learning human emotions" trick is one several science fiction films have attempted, and most are embarrassing and painful to watch, dripping with sugar and sap. "Soldier" excels in this department as Russel makes the shift from killing machine to feeling man in a subtle, believable way. The film is just very, very well done and well written. The acting is fine all the way around, and the dialogue is completely absent of those wince-producing moments films of this nature often have.

Over time, this has become one of my favorite movies. I have watched it several times with increased enjoyment each time. I have quoted dialogue from this movie on more than one occasion, particularly the moment when Sgt. Todd tries to express his feelings, and all he can verbalize is "fear . . . discipline."

This movie is carefully crafted, intelligent, and hugely entertaining from the opening credits onward.

Rating:
Summary: My favourite action movie...not saying much, actually
Review: There are several reviews here which provide a perfectly adequate overview of the movie as a whole, but I want to put in a plug for what is, to me, its greatest appeal. This was one of the first DVDs I ever watched, and it has the first commentary track I ever listened to.
I am a tremendous admirer of Jason Isaacs, who plays a sneering bully (Col. Mekum) in this movie. His role is quite small, but he joins Paul Anderson on the director's commentary and reveals himself to be a man of unusual intelligence and wit. Anderson and the producer, I think, get completely absorbed in self-congratulatory Fanboy minutiae, but I thought Isaacs was hysterically funny. An unusual treat for that reason.

Rating:
Summary: Far better than you may have heard
Review: Boy, I'm sure glad I watched this movie _before_ I found out I wasn't supposed to like it. I don't understand the disappointment; this is a well-made and satisfying movie.

I've said before that Kurt Russell is an extremely underrated actor, and he proves it again here. This is a demanding role.

Sgt. Todd is a genetically-engineered supersoldier, indoctrinated from birth as part of something called the 'Adam Project'. A seasoned combat veteran, Todd is a highly trained killing machine who has never known any other way of life.

Yet during the movie, we're supposed to gather that he's starting to feel some 'normal' human emotions and having trouble reconciling his past with his present. Somehow Todd has to put all this across to the audience with a bare minimum of dialogue and an absolutely flat-affect delivery -- rather like Arnold in the _Terminator_ films, with the difference that Todd is _not_ a cyborg or robot, but a human being with a deep inner life that he doesn't know how to express.

I don't know who could have played the part other than Russell. I can't think of another actor who could manage to convey so much with an expressionless face and _also_ be believable as a pumped-up supersoldier. (And Russell is seriously pumped up for this film.)

The story is well-crafted, too. Written by David Webb Peoples, one of the screenwriters on _Blade Runner_, this film is conceived as something of a sequel to that one and partakes of its darkness and moral ambiguity. But for all that, it zips along nicely under Paul Anderson's direction (despite some overuse of slo-mo).

Oh, there's some derivative stuff that we can charitably regard as 'homage' if we like. There's a very heavy nod toward _First Blood_ (and in general a strong evocation of the U.S.'s treatment of Vietnam veterans). And certainly this supersoldier thing has been done before (although _Universal Soldier_, _RoboCop_, and _The Six Million Dollar Man_ were cyborgs rather than genetically engineered Uebermenschen). That just means we're dealing with a very good B movie rather than something breathtakingly new.

Some viewers have suggested that Jason Scott Lee isn't very effectively used in this film. I disagree; I think he's downright fearsome in his single-minded lethality. (As you'll learn in the first few minutes of the film, he's one of a team of _super_-supersoldiers that are supposed to render Sgt. Todd and his guys obsolete.)

The SF backdrop is interesting and unforced although not terribly well fleshed out. All I can say without spoiling things is that there's a planet in the Arcadia sector that Earth is using as a junkyard, and that there's a human society living on it that nobody on Earth knows about.

The rest of the cast does well (including Michael Chiklis). Watch especially for a nice job by Gary Busey. You'll probably also like the Joel McNeely score, which doesn't break any new ground (and certainly doesn't hoist the film to the stratosphere as David Arnold's does _Stargate_) but nevertheless does its job adequately.

Oh -- and don't forget to be awed by the hauntingly gorgeous piece of music in Scene 11. It's 'Night Ride Across the Caucasus' by Loreena McKennitt and it's on her CD _The Book of Secrets_.

Rating:
Summary: Stark and subtle tail
Review: I loved this movie. This movie plot has been done before many, many times. Intimidating fighter is thrust into different culture and learns to value it and realizes what he has been missing all this time. What I liked about this movie is the programming the soldiers went through seemed realistic and very possible. I think most people that make movies with the same plot always make the mistake of have the main characters changing too much. This has always seemed unrealistic to me, and quite frankly a little insulting. This movie lets you see the changes in subtle little ways Kurt Russell acts. I would say subtle describes this whole movie. Instead of pounding points into the viewers face, it lets you make your own conclusions on how you would feel if you lived a similar life.

Rating:
Summary: KURT RUSSELL SWEEPS AWAY ALL OF YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Review: In Soldier, Kurt Russel plays the soldier of the future, one of many raised from birth inside a brutal military training regieme to be the perfect soldier, in an age of space travel and goverments whose militaries kill indescrimanately (well, in that regard, I guess nothing had changed much). Russell and his fellow soldiers are physically powerful, experienced in warfare, and whose only experiences are, battlefields, combat training, and barracks. But upon reaching middle age, Russell and his commrades suddenly find themselves replaced and ultimately degraded by a new generation of genetically engineered and ultimately superior uber-soldiers. Russell's character, Todd, after a confrontation with one of the new soldiers, is left for dead on a planet that's little more than (litterally) a garbage dump and the only inhabitants are a group of shipwrecked colonists who become the first real friends he's ever had. To be honest, I would have never considered renting this movie if not for the talented presence of Kurt Russell because he never disappoints and in Soldier he simply overwhelms you with his performance. Depsite a paucity of lines, he brings his character powerfully to life almost soley through facial expression. While a great soldier, the martial upbringing of Russell's character has left him almost completely without emotion, and watching him deal with emotional situations which he's never experienced was some truly great acting on Russells part. The actions scenes, while not overly immaginative, are also well done and quite brutal, with Todd in one scene gouging out the eye of an opponent while fighting on hanging chains 50 ft. off the ground. His final hand-to-hand confrontation with one of the uber-soldiers (appropriately named Cain) was nicely done for the most part. While the plot of the movie itself is little better than an episode of Battlestar Galactica, Russell and a resoundingly talented supporting cast imbue it with a lot more substance than one finds in other films that have won Oscars. I won't guarantee you'll like it, but even if you don't, you'd probably have to admit (if you're honest) that Russell and the rest of the cast do a wonderful job.

Rating:
Summary: High-class B movie
Review: Kurt Russell is very much an underrated actor. He can do humor (Big Trouble in Little China, and the Escape From movies) and now it turns out he can be serious. Here he does it with a minimum of words--I doubt he says 50 words in this film. Everything he does, he does with his expressions. I found the first part of the movie the best part; after that, when he turns into Rambo in Space, the whole thing degenerates a bit. Still,it's an excellent film, with a truly wonderful song in the middle of the movie that came out of nowhere.

Rating:
Summary: Russell is great and he keeps this at bay
Review: filled with some great action scenes including the part where Russell emerges out of the water and guns down a lot of guards. but the laging is the other people like Jason Issaacs and Gary Busey. for Russell fans and he's really not talkative that much in this one up until the point where he talks.

Rating:
Summary: Sue me, I loved this movie
Review: I just want to thank Kurt Russell for doing this movie. It's not often that A-list quality actors do movies like this. Sure, it had a fairly low budget, but that never got in the way. Every dollar is on the screen. I'm glad I bought it; I've already seen it two or three times and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you're searching for a plot heavy, dramatic, Oscar-caliber movie, then I would urge you to keep looking. If you're a guy (or gal) who is sometimes in the mood for a good, lean, military sci-fi flic, then I urge you to check this one out.

Rating:
Summary: ode to what could have been ...
Review: You know, if anyone has ever read any of my other reviews, you'll realize that I've got a horrible pet peeve about movies that have a lot of potential and flop miserably. I don't think a movie has been made yet that exemplifies this more then Paul Anderson's 'Soldier.'

This movie REALLY could have been mind-blowing had it not been held back by Anderson's chronic lack of any imagination (see my other reviews of Paul Anderson's work). If this material was being molded by ANYBODY with any sense of vision or especially scope, this movie might have been as popular as the Matrix is now. 'Soldier' was CRYING to be done on a grand scale. How cool would it have been to have seen a huge 'Saving Private Ryan' meets 'Attack of the Clones'-type battle scene? Instead we get work that looks like it was done in a high school auditorium.

Look at things like the horribly dull set designs (not bad per se, but just no creativity), the poor lighting, the stereotyped lemming-civilian characters, and the clichéd villains. It's awful how phoned-in this movie just seemed.

The tragic part is that Kurt Russell was terrific in it and was just surrounded by people (actors and production crew alike) that just had no interest (or maybe ability) in trying to add flavor to the VAST RESOURCES they had at their disposal.

I actually cringe when I think about just how cool this could have been compared to the body of work that everyone seemed content to turn in.