Soldier (1998 American film)

Did You Know?

• Kurt Russell spoke only 104 words in the entire movie despite being in 85% of the scenes.
• During the first week of shooting, Russell broke his left ankle, then the top of his right foot four days later, forcing a rescheduled production that filmed scenes in order of least physical movement first.

Plot

In 1996, an experimental military program selects orphaned infants and raises them as disciplined, ruthless soldiers, culling those who underperform. Colonel Mekum introduces the new soldiers to Captain Church, who demands a test: three original soldiers against one new soldier, Caine 607. Caine easily defeats them, biting Todd's arm; Todd gouges out Caine's eye before falling from a great height, cushioned by a dead soldier's body. Believed dead, Todd is discarded on the waste disposal planet Arcadia 234.

He limps to a colony of crash-landed residents, where Mace and his wife Sandra shelter him. Todd struggles to adapt to the peaceful community due to his military conditioning, developing a silent bond with their mute son Nathan. Experiencing emotion for the first time, Todd cries. Later, Nathan uses Todd's lesson to save his parents from a snake, leading them to seek Todd's reintegration, though other colonists resist.

Reception

Soldier grossed $14.6 million in the United States. CinemaScore audiences gave it an average grade of B+. Bruce Westbrook of the Houston Chronicle found the action handled fairly well but routine, with no satisfaction in Todd's victories. Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly criticized the film's overuse of genre clichés.

Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune described it as a brutal actioner lacking promised humanity. Lisa Alspector of the Chicago Reader called Russell's performance persuasive and the formulaic adventure enjoyable. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times rated it 3.5 out of 5, calling it a potent comic-book-style action-adventure. Eddie Harrison of film-authority.com noted the brutalist sci-fi tone and Todd's stubborn refusal to be discarded.

Niall Browne of Movies in Focus argued the film deserves reappraisal as a visually arresting piece of science fiction cinema with a bold performance from Russell, who speaks only 104 words.

Connection with Blade Runner

David Webb Peoples, who co-wrote Blade Runner, wrote Soldier. In 1998 he stated he considers Soldier a spiritual successor to Blade Runner, seeing both films in a shared fictional universe. The film obliquely references elements of Philip K. Dick's stories or their adaptations: a Spinner from Blade Runner appears in the junk planet wreckage, and Todd's character is shown to have fought at the Shoulder of Orion and Tannhäuser Gate, battles mentioned in Roy Batty's dying monologue. The script was 15 years old at production. However, in a 2023 interview, Peoples said he never initially conceived Soldier as a side-quel to Blade Runner. He wrote it in 1984 after seeing The Terminator, wanting to create a tough, seemingly unsympathetic lead character.