Soldier (1998)

Although this is an enjoyable film and I'm a huge fan of Kurt Russell, I strongly believe that this film is a total ripoff of an illustrated story called The War Machine from a 1993 issue of Heavy Metal magazine. It is puzzling to me because the screenwriter of Soldier - David Peoples, wrote the screenplays for Blade Runner and Unforgiven among others and hence obviously has talent. You can read said story here and draw your own conclusions. Oohttps://archive.org/stream/heavy-metal-magazine- 1993/Heavy_Metal_v07_01_1993_War_Machine#page/n15/mode/1upAgain, it is a very watchable film, but I have seen no mention anywhere as to credit or acknowledgement of the the Heavy Metal story.

Soldier is a 1998 science fiction film directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The film, classified as a thriller, starred Kurt Russell as a futuristic soldier named Todd 364. The film also featured Jason Scott Lee, Jason Isaacs, Connie Nielsen, and Sean Pertwee.The critics used this film as a punching bag much like the character in the film Todd hits, it didn't deserve the bashing it got.All in all, the film never bored me at any point. The film was written by David Webb Peoples, and was intended to be a sidestory/Spiritual Successor to Blade Runner (to the point that multiple references to Runner are seen throughout the film).A committed performance by Kurt Russell that deserved to be far more appreciated he really does a lot with little, every gesture and movement . A science-fiction Western at its finest. Shane in space.

I still enjoy this movie. Sure it is exaggerated and simplistic, sure it is just another "Rambo" set in the future and a far away planet instead of a forest or jungle. As a kid, I watched it mainly for the action and Kurt Russell. I thought Kurt Russell was mesmerizing as Todd and I could really relate to his character. Nowadays it is mostly for its theme and still Kurt Russell that I watch the movie. (I'll get deeper into the theme). There is lots of action, but on the more naivé and simplistic side. With a Rambo-like character that can take on a whole army without getting a scratch, standard stuff for your average action movie. But although with the simple premise and approach, I still feel interest in this movie. It is not a groundbreaking movie. It is not the most well made movie, but it doesn't take itself too seriously, which is good. With a subtle and convincing performance of Kurt Russell.Now to the real reason why I like this movie: the theme. The theme has been explored many times before but I still find it interesting in this movie. The theme is dehumanization, it has been explored better and deeper, like in Stanley Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket'. Also 'Full Metal Jacket' has a much more punching power than this movie. But in 'Soldier' it was quite touching with Todd's character development (Although I like Joker's character development better) and its exploration to its theme. Whilst in 'Full Metal Jacket', we get to see the consequences of dehumanization and its effects on mankind in the end, in 'Soldier' we head in the other direction where our main character begin to act more human and regain his humanity. Kind of like the other side of the coin. But I honestly prefer 'Full Metal Jacket', I feel it is more honest. But 'Soldier' is still an above average action movie even though it is quite simplistic. I honestly feel this movie is worth watching over and over again. Oh, also Kurt Russell doesn't spend half of his time on-screen spitting out cheesy one-liners like you would normally get in its genre, which I quite like.I give the movie 7/10

Oh Paul W.S. Anderson, you always bring me such disappointment and you always give me a deep rage inside of me in your films that feel unfinished in a strange way. Now he makes a film with Kurt Russell and Gary Busey and still mangers to f'ck it up but still directing today. Why I may ask?.The story is about are main character Todd who is an engineered military fighting machine, but after being left for dead on a remote planet he starts a new life. He must fight his very replacements to save his newly found friends. In every Paul W.S. Anderson movie that he direct's it always looks like it has a good budget to it like: The Resident Evil film series, Mortal Kombat, Death Race and now this film, and just like some of his other films it always has the same results; a wasted opportunity of being good. I know Paul W.S. Anderson can be a good director, I found Alien Vs Predator to be my biggest guilty pleasure of all time and Mortal Kombat wasn't all that bad, so I know he can be good, but Soldier isn't one of them. The best way to possibly describe this nonsense of a film is be saying something like this: Imagine you got all you're army action figures and you're small plastic gun figures together and simply set them on fire and throw them down the stairs and watch them go all over the place making has much noise as possible, then close your eyes and think to yourself "God that was annoying and stupid", yeah that's this movie, that's this freaking movie!.Let's start off with the good: Kurt Russell dose the best of what his got and that's saying a lot because of the blandness of his character. The action scenes are pretty well done if I must say and Gary Busey once again brings such a goofy performance but his so enjoyable to watch with the little screen time he got.Now for the bad and these a lot: The movie is just bombarding with dull scenes and cardboard character's that the end of the day is a waste of time watching. Todd the main character of the film barely speaks a word through the film, yes he dose say a couple of lines but for most part his dead silent. Main character's barely not saying anything can be a big risk in movies but some films pulled it off really well like the movie Drive and it was all down to good writing, but this doesn't have good writing and the silent hero thing completely did not work at all and made the character less interesting to watch. The writing was pretty poor, the other character's I didn't really care about at all and I doubt that Kurt Russell has ever had less dialogue to work anywhere. Overall this movie sucks and to the people who are defending this movie I got this to say to them, "Don't even try it".