Story Movie
...Soldiers are recruited into the army practically from the cradle. Children are sent to military schools, where—without parents and without any concessions for their youth—selected recruits are trained to become professional soldiers. Todd becomes one such soldier. He fought for over 40 years, becoming the best in his unit. When new recruits were sent to his spaceship—recruits who were supposed to surpass the veterans in every way, led by a West Point graduate—the colonel pitted three veterans against a new fighter, and the old men lost. They were cast out onto the wasteland of the distant planet Arcadia, but Todd survived. He was rescued by local settlers whose ship had made an emergency landing on this planet many years ago, and Todd stayed to live among them. In his heart there was not only fear and discipline, as he told the lovely, beautiful woman who had rescued him, but also kindness. When the colonel dropped new soldiers onto the planet to test them in an operation to exterminate the colony’s inhabitants, Todd proved that experience, combined with the human factor, is worth far more than genetic superiority and bulging muscles.
Review 4K Movie
Despite its glaring simplicity, low budget, and austere style, this film remains one of my all-time favorite science fiction movies. The low-budget nature of 80s sci-fi action films is embodied perfectly in *Soldier*, creating a simple yet heartwarming story rooted in primitivism, much like a grandmother’s fairy tales. What’s with this nostalgia for 80s simple-fighting films? This is the late ’90s, after all! Why was *Soldier* filmed in such an ancient, outdated style? It’s unclear. But there was clearly no expectation of commercial success. So why and for what purpose?..
“Soldier” is an example of low-budget sci-fi—unusual for our times—where the setting and circumstances are outlined only in broad strokes, literally begging the viewer to fill in the blanks themselves. Thus, the scenery is a monochromatic picture, and the props are on par with a garbage dump. The plot is just as trashy—as simple as “2+2”—and the characters are just as clumsily straightforward as the story, which is as predictable as can be. Poverty and simplicity. Here’s the starting point. “Escape from New York/Los Angeles,” with the same Kurt in the cast, looked richer. But was it any more appealing?
The near future. Little boys were snatched straight from their cradles by a ruthless military complex, which turned them into perfect soldiers through training and brainwashing. Robots, so to speak, for whom there is only an order to follow or die. And now these taciturn, cold-hearted guys are being replaced by real robots, bred to meet the needs of the military machine, whose undeniable advantage is that flesh and blood are still susceptible to damage (and their capabilities are limited), while their advanced bodies—bam—can’t be taken down. The old generation of soldiers is thus written off and, deemed unnecessary, transferred to the reserves. And some, considered dead, are dumped like junk onto an uninhabited planet.
The planet, as it turns out, is far from as uninhabited as they thought, and poor, unfortunate refugees live there, existing at the level of a primitive society. Primitive, pardon me, only in terms of their activities—agriculture, plant cultivation—but otherwise it is a tiny utopian society/state where law and order reign, and the polite, helpful fellow citizens love one another and assist in every way.
They are the ones who take in the barely alive Soldier, played by the pumped-up Kurt Russell, thereby winning the trust of this tough guy, and subsequently, with the professionalism and zeal characteristic of a soldier, he protects the good people from the bad guys.
What do I like about this movie? The characters. Simple as a pair of felt boots, but so heartfelt! Kurt Russell himself, whose physical form has reached unprecedented perfection, and whose script could fit on a scrap of notebook paper—he’s so charming in this movie that it’s truly amazing! He rarely spoke—I counted six words; he changed his expression from stony-indifferent to something else maybe twice, but with machine guns and flamethrowers, of course, he handled them just as confidently and deftly as any other action hero—Arnie or Norris from our beloved ’80s.
At first, Kurt’s character is so suffocated by his stereotypical nature that it’s hard to breathe, but as the film unfolds, we notice a kind of spiritual rebirth—a humanization, an awakening of emotions, a thawing and softening. Particularly noteworthy is the scene with a bush, which he awkwardly planted in the ground alongside Connie Nilsson’s character, as well as the episode where he taught a little mute boy to stomp poisonous snakes with an army boot.
What can I say: that tiny scene where the utopian society expelled him for failing to integrate into the collective, and Russell’s character discovered a tear on his cheek with astonishment—that moved me like a child! Sweet, though. Just like the shaking of the Soldier at the moment when the beautiful and feminine Connie Nilsson came up close to him and took his hand. I don’t want to sound vulgar, but in the process of relieving stress in a certain way, I suspect such a man would be up to the task, given the hormonal surges previously restrained by disciplinary boundaries.
All in all, a decent action movie. There’s fighting and shooting. And alongside the gritty military scenes, there’s a pleasant, peaceful life that’s been very skillfully emphasized—they weren’t afraid to drag out those very peaceful scenes to let the viewer get emotional and attached. I, for one, was on the edge of my seat. Not doubting the predictable happy ending for a second, of course, but I was still on the edge of my seat.
Bottom line: a cheap action flick, unremarkable but good. I really love Kurt Russell for *Tombstone*, *Tango & Cash*, and *Overboard*, where he’s typically not handsome but utterly charming, and in *Soldier*, unlike his usual self, I just find him incredibly likable. That said, I’ve always liked Russell, especially in “Tequila Sunrise.” There, if I had to choose between Gibson and Russell, unlike Michelle, I would have picked Russell.
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