Just saw SOLDIER.
Ya know, I don’t really care for Paul Anderson’s films. MORTAL KOMBAT was just loud and noisy without any characters or motivations that I got into. EVENT HORIZON was a real cluster of completely blown opportunities.
However, the one commonality is that Paul likes to mix his genres. Mortal Kombat was fantasy-kung-fu film. Event Horizon was scifi-horror. And now with SOLDIER he has western-scifi.
What really astounds me is here is a filmmaker that seems to want to make films that combine elements of multiple genres, but he doesn’t seem to understand any of the genres that are being used.
This is tragic.
When I first started telling you guys and gals about this film, it was based on a script. A script that really did understand all the right things about combining science fiction and the western genre.
That script took equal parts from SHANE, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, UNFORGIVEN, ALIENS and BLADE RUNNER. This was a part created for Kurt Russell. I was DYING to see it done justly.
You see my favorite action dude is Kurt Russell. Why? Because I just like his voice, the look in his eyes, and the fact that he’s an underdog actor that is constantly looked at as subpar Stallone or Schwarzeneggar, though to me... he’s better than both.
Unfortunately this film wasn’t directed by someone like James Cameron or John Woo. Instead we were stuck with Paul Anderson.
But is it really his fault? See this is where I begin to question things. The first draft that I have was written about the exact same day that my site was created. February 12, 1996. That script was by David Webb Peoples with a rewrite by Tony Gilroy. And my god it was glorius.
The next draft, which I received about 3 months ago was David Webb Peoples with someone named Chains doing work on it, and is dated October 2nd 1997. This draft is shit.
So right around the time of the Titanic test screenings last year, right before filming, the world of Soldier lost it’s foundation.
Gone was the amazing battle at Tannhauser Gates.
“Two hundred feet high. Parapets, turrets and pillboxes all armed with rotary cannons and heat-seekers and pulse-blasters and God knows what else, and the overall impression is that anyone trying to get inside here is on a suicide mission and --”
The mission was suicidal. Todd (Kurt Russell’s character) was on a mission with his unit. Almost everyone died in a battle that epic just barely begins to cover.
Instead we get lame teeny tiny battles, no sense of SCOPE. That’s a big thing here. NO SENSE OF SCOPE! Imagine MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME but more fakey looking. Now I happened to have liked this film more than Mad Max III, but that ain’t exactly a good thing.
Paul Anderson.... ewwwww, God I’m getting angry. This could’ve, should’ve been Kurt Russell’s best film. Instead these idiots surround him with bad actors. I mean imagine in SHANE or OUTLAW JOSEY WALES if you surrounded Alan Ladd or Eastwood with defenseless people that you could give a rat’s ass for.
There’s this one kid that... I wanted to just microwave the lil bastard. Imagine a clone of the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND kid that didn’t really come out that good so you banished the memorex midget to the garbage world.
All these characters were ruined. His character was exactly the way he was supposed to be. Stoic, quiet, unfeeling, fearful and haunted by the past. But he was surrounded by a bunch of damn bunny rabbits that should be hung upside down and skinned alive. Horrible damn actors.
The lead female had nothing. The townspeople reminded me of the episodic idiot people that live on every planet that the crew from Star Trek beams down to. Character-less faces, bland voices. Joel McNeely’s score abandoned Russell. My god, this film needed a Morricone-ish feel. Not an overblown score, which I’m sure will be fine to listen to separately, but not with this film.
Then the bad guys... well shucks, let’s make them evil. Dammit. This just goes to show that a buncha damn idiots were running the show. Why on earth do you make them EVIL. They are just doing their damn job. Everyone involved should go back to the February 1996 draft and read it. They should see the total lack of “Ewwwwww, I’m Sooooooo Eeeeevillll”.
Paul Anderson should be banished to low budget filmmaking from here on out, till he can prove he can tell a damn story, not shooting a damn picture. I’m sure he does real nice music videos, but how about telling a story. Can Paul Anderson get a group of Cub Scouts to sit around a fire then scare the living shit of the farts with a ghost story?
Because from this, it looks like a phoned in job. Whoever visually conceived this flick should hang their heads. I can just see this. Oh, well they are on a garbage planet with high winds and in an arrid area... so ummmm we’ll just have big ol piles of garbage, and it’ll all be done in blacks and golden hues.
Dammit. Use some damn imagination. Look at a MOUNTAIN for a day. Watch the way the sun reacts to it. How it gleams, how different colors come out. Now imagine mountains made of man stuff. You know cars, hefty bags, aircraft carriers, buildings, steel, aluminum, gold, diamonds, tv dinner trays, televisions, aircraft, jalopys... everything of our past. Everything we once were. And here amongst our past lived a tribe of forgotten people. People that lived desperate lives, carving a niche out of this world of the discarded.
Oh, well let’s just fuck that vision all up. I mean shit, what we needed were a buncha damn stereotyped simple folk that couldn’t last in that enviroment. That couldn’t take those winds, that weren’t hardened by the desolation that surrounded them. OH GOD NO, we have to have a pansy ass group that had mongoloid children and petty idiots running the show.
That’ll get Russell’s Soldier character to change. Once he realizes the people he’s been killing his whole life were a bunch of vacuous lip-twiddlers he’ll mend them murderous ways. “I’ll never kill another group of herded cattle again.” The reason I eat hamburgers is because I have no respect for cattle. They ain’t smart, they ain’t cute, I don’t want a relationship with em.
Now dogs, I don’t eat them. A dog will do tricks, a dog has soulful eyes and a dog has personality. I mean goddamn CUJO was more likable than these idjuts.
Jason Scott Lee and Kurt Russell should have teamed up and started carving up the producers and the director. Maiming and killing them. I bet Paul Anderson and the producers didn’t think they (themselves) were evil. But they sure as hell were. THIS FILM FUCKING SUCKS!!!!!!
Goddammit there ain’t no excuse for this shit. I’m angry. You bastards stole part of my life. I came out of the theater thinking... “hmmm not as bad as I thought” Then as I began eating a really really good meal at Threadgills I began getting pissed. I had started digesting that shit blossum and it wasn’t going down too well.
Then as I got to the parking lot of the restaurant and drove the final 6 blocks home, I started raging. Then when I got to my computer I just started frothing at the mouth.
How did this project get into a numbnutted idiot like Paul Anderson’s hands? Who is responsible? I want their heads!
When given that script, Kurt Russell and an additional $60 million dollars and all you can do is come up with that...... ARGH!!! Did he realize the opportunity he had? I mean here... here was the fucking deal man. This was his chance to make a great fucking movie. He didn’t need to spend it lighting farts. But that’s what he did, ignited methane. A total waste. Too bad the fire didn’t back up into the internal organs and cook the bastard.
Sizzle.
George Cosmatos, John McTiernan, Tsui Hark (I mean what the fuck man, this guy gets shouldered with that idiot savant Van Damme!), John Woo, John Carpenter. Can anybody fucking imagine what Carpenter could do with a WESTERN - SCI FI FILM WITH A GREAT SCRIPT, KURT RUSSELL AND $60 MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!! You fucking assholes stop fucking around! There are people out there that damn well could have made this film something beautiful. And the idiots over at Warners just continue to shovel shit like snow in Wisconson!
STOP MAKING BAD MOVIES WITH GREAT POTENTIAL.
I mean, I can take cinematic douches like URBAN LEGEND, but dammit this was just mediocrity. There is nothing worse than mediocrity. Because it ain’t exactly the worst thing in the world, and it ain’t exactly great... instead it’s FORGETTABLE! I mean by next week I’m gonna fucking just forget it. But right now, my adrenal gland is crying for the fucking head of PAUL ANDERSON!!!!
Well, I’m gonna go see a somewhat more tolerable film THE WARRIORS and drink some damn Guinness Stout and hopefully I won’t have to wait till next damn week to forget this shit. I want the pain to stop.
I need a beautiful woman, a bottle of wine, a case of rubbers and no phone calls for 2 weeks.
But that ain’t happening any time soon.
It ain’t Kurt Russell’s fault. IT IS EVERYBODY ELSES!!! KILL EM ALL! (not actually an invitation to Manson followers, but to the people that sign these Dan Quayles to future projects.)
