Soldier: The Kurt Russell Cult Classic Gets a Solid 4K Release From Arrow
I have vivid memories of going to see Soldier in theaters back in the fall of 1998. As a huge Kurt Russell fan, thanks to having discovered his work with John Carpenter on VHS a few years earlier, and having been rocked by his mid-nineties work like Tombstone, Stargate, and Executive Decision, I couldn’t wait to see it. Yet, in the months leading up to its release, it had been mercilessly attacked by some of the early fan sites, including Ain’t It Cool News, who reported that it had terrible test screenings and was a dud.
I couldn’t believe it myself, as I had been a huge fan of the director—Paul W.S. Anderson’s other big sci-fi movies, Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon (in fact, I snuck in to the latter with a fake ID). I remember the week leading up to its release talking about it with some of my friends in high school, and most of them seemed to think it wouldn’t be good, so I ended up seeing it at a Saturday matinee with the one friend I talked into going with me. I remember being shocked at how the theater was virtually empty, which was rare in the nineties—even movies that didn’t do well usually managed to fill a good number of seats. Whenever a theater would be virtually empty, it meant the movie was a disaster, and indeed Soldier was one of the biggest flops of the year, only grossing $14.6 million on a big $60 million budget.
Kurt Russell’s performance and miscasting debate
When I originally saw it, I thought Soldier was an okay sci-fi action film, and that’s pretty much how I feel about it twenty-eight (!) years later. Kurt Russell, who was about forty-seven at the time, had put himself through an insane regimen to convincingly play a super-soldier, but even back then I remember thinking he was wildly miscast. Much was made about the fact that Russell only speaks 104 words—and I found that very annoying. The reason my buddies and I all loved Russell so much was because he had so much attitude. That’s what made him different from the other action heroes of the day. Lots of them had bigger muscles or were better fighters, but none of them were as cool as Russell. I remember thinking Soldier could have just as easily been a JCVD vehicle, as Russell wasn’t allowed to show any of his normal strengths as the robotic Sergeant Todd.
Revisiting Soldier: a low-key sci-fi western
Looking back at Soldier now, I can be a little easier on it, as you can tell Russell wanted to push himself to his physical limit one last time, and indeed he actually suffered some major injuries on the movie that hampered the action sequences, which are relatively low-key. It’s basically a remake of Shane, but set in the future, as Todd—discarded as being too old—is left to die on a waste disposal planet where he’s adopted by some settlers, who he protects when his old unit attacks them.
The Jason Scott Lee rivalry and action style
The part of the movie that works best is the antagonism between Todd and Jason Scott Lee’s younger, genetically modified Caine, with Todd gouging out one of his eyes earlier, making him an outcast among his kind. The whole movie builds up to their rematch, and I like how low-key the fight is, with it coming along just before The Matrix and bullet time had too big of an influence on Anderson’s subsequent work, with his fight scenes afterwards always cut to ribbons. This is lower-key but effective.
How Soldier impacted Kurt Russell’s career
Soldier, being such a big flop, arguably had a very negative effect on Russell’s status as a leading man. He had famously earned a huge $20 million to star in it, but he would never lead as big a film again. His next starring role, 3000 Miles to Graceland, would pair him with Kevin Costner and would be another flop, and thereafter Russell would focus more on supporting roles and character parts—although he remains popular, with him leading not one but two current TV series, The Madison and Monarch, with his son Wyatt, who—just like on that show—plays the younger version of Russell’s character here.
Arrow Video’s re-release and special features
Arrow, who have been working overtime to resurrect some nineties gems, have given Soldier a pretty lavish re-release. Some archival materials from the old DVD (it was one of the first movies released in that format) have been ported over, while there are also a bunch of new interviews with people involved in the production—although sadly none of the stars are interviewed (except in the vintage EPK, which is included). One cool extra, though, is an interview with Danny Stewart, who is probably the world’s biggest Soldier fan (he wrote a great book about the making of it), and who has been a friend of the site for many years.
Final thoughts on Soldier’s legacy
If you have fond memories of Soldier or consider it an underrated part of Russell’s filmography, I can promise you that the film will never get a better release—unless Russell, at some point, decides to record a commentary for it (his commentaries with Carpenter, and his one for Used Cars, are considered classics). You can buy it HERE.
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