Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Paul Anderson
• Written by David Webb Peoples
• Starring
  • Kurt Russell
  • Jason Scott Lee
  • Jason Isaacs
  • Connie Nielsen
  • Sean Pertwee
• Produced by Jerry Weintraub

With all of the big-screen comic book adaptations hitting the multiplex, I have to define my terms when I say that a movie is “comic-booky.” I’m not talking about an overabundance of spandex here or a penchant for dual identities. A comic-booky movie is one in which everything is exaggerated to the point of caricature. Antagonists are villainous beyond all moustache-twirling cliches. The good supporting characters are pure-hearted and beatific without spot or blemish. Colors are in solid blocks. Explosions and set pieces are bigger. There are no moral ambiguities, no maddeningly complex issues, and there’s never really a question as to where the plot will lead.

Welcome to Soldier. Scriptwriter David Webb Peoples has a spotty but respectable track record (having Blade Runner, Twelve Monkeys, and Unforgiven on your resume is never a bad thing), but director Paul “Resident Evil” Anderson is definitely one of the directors today who appears to have made comic-booky movies his career goal.

Soldier begins with a montage showing the development, from moments after birth, of the soldier of the future: The infant Todd is co-opted into a government-run program which trains him for loyalty for the corps and educates him in the manifold methods of efficient killing. We quickly watch him develop through the program to age seventeen, always surrounded by brainwashing truisms broadcast over loudspeakers, and overseen by instructors and officers whose ankle-length overcoats are more than coincidentally evocative of Nazi officers. (Here’s the reaction that this, and all subsequent unsubtle visuals, will evoke in all viewers with IQs greater than their shoe size: “Yes, thanks, we get it.” Be prepared to hear that a lot.)

When Lasik Goes Bad — next on Fox!

After graduation, he becomes Kurt Russell and engages in more montaged military campaigns around the planet, the solar system, and eventually the local settled area of interstellar space. (Given that Todd’s birth takes place in 1996, we’re positing a pretty quick expansion into space here.) The point, of course, is that Todd is the perfect soldier — ruthless, merciless, and with perfect aim, and is left with a crippled soul by his all-encompassing indoctrination. Yes, thanks, we get it.

When Todd is forty, though, there comes a challenge even his skills can’t surmount. A new breed of soldier is introduced, literally; whereas Todd and his compatriots were selected at birth, these new soldiers were selected — and engineered — before birth for greater stamina, endurance, and aggressive instincts. Todd’s commander, Captain Church, is played semi-sympathetically by Gary Busey (who, as his face ages and his jawline softens, isn’t so much the consummate hardass character player he once was); on the other hand, the main proponent of the new ‘n’ improved soldier is Church’s superior, Colonel Mekum (Jason Isaacs), and he’s every possibly soulless fascist visual cue rolled into one: a uniform missing only the SS insignia on the collar, a thin moustache of the kind that went out of style at the Treaty of Versailles, and a willingness to casually blow soldier “fodder” away as object lessons. Yes, thanks, we get it.

When Colonel Mekum proposed (or orders, really) a test pitting the old guard against his new breed, Todd is singled out to compete against Caine (Jason Scott Lee) in endurance trials and such. The two men really epitomize the differences between the two teams — not only is Todd about twenty years older than Caine, but all of Todd’s compatriots are buzz-cut and wear khaki tees, in opposition to the youngbloods who are all shaven-headed and wear black tank tops. You can just feel the contrast, can’t you?

Taking out the trash.

Naturally, Caine beats Todd on a fifteen-mile course in less than half the time, then beats him again in a chain climb. And just to prove that his men are more impressive fighters despite the lack of combat experience, Colonel Mekum pits Caine against Todd and three other older soldiers while clinging to chains. Although Todd manages to get in his digs by blinding one of Caine’s eyes, Caine naturally kills all of his opponents. Well, almost; remember what I said about Colonel Mekum casually shooting soldiers as object lessions?

Actually, there’s a second “almost,” because Todd isn’t quite dead (well, duh). And no, you don’t get any gold stars for leaping ahead and guessing that the whole plot’s going to come down to a second mano-a-mano battle between Todd and Caine. Anyway, Todd and the corpses are put on a waste disposal ship to avoid any embarrassing paperwork, and dumped on a waste disposal planet.

Up to here, I suppose, the movie’s been marginally plausible. Hackneyed and obvious, yes, but plausible. But here’s where we leave plausibility behind and leap right into a universe designed solely for facile plot convenience. Trash ships, see, transport half-empty loads of trash (mostly metal and mechanical parts — you know, materials that should be easily reclamable) in huge,atmospherically-pressurized holds to a designated trash planet, where they descend far enough through the atmosphere to drop the stuff (and with it, Todd) onto huge heaps of garbage on the planet’s surface.

(Sigh.) Let’s stop and look at this, shall we?

Is our civilization four decades into the twenty-first century so resource-rich that we don’t need to worry about recycling refined metals and other materials?

Even assuming that to be so, would we be so wasteful in our disposal of it? If we’re so deadset on its disposal, why not, say, fire compacted blocks of rubbish into interstellar space via a magnetic cannon, where it can drift among the stars off the main travel paths? (It’s not like space litter would ever get to be a navigational hazard. Space is really, really big. Trust me.) Or, if interstellar clutter is honestly a concern, why not just fire it in the general direction of the nearest sun? Instant, clean disposal. In other words, what senator’s home district got the contract for building trash ships?

Brown! The color of the year this year — and every year!

Even assuming there were some valid reason for travelling to another solar system just to dump the garbage somewhere, is our future civilization so awash in habitable planets (within that narrow band of temperature, gravity, atmosphere and native elements) that they can use one for a trash heap? I mean, couldn’t they just let it go over a gas giant?

And for heaven’s sakes, why would they waste the time and incur the wear-and-tear on the dumper ships to bring them all the way through the atmosphere, to dump their loads within a hundred feet of the surface? Just skin the ionosphere lightly enough that the junk will spiral down instead of sustaining an orbit, and let it go.

(It’s really appalling how often science fiction movies, which are supposedly inspired by the “literature of ideas,” require their audiences to suspend all rational thought in order to enjoy them.)

So. Todd survives the fall to the surface not much the worse for wear (given that he started out mostly dead), sees signs that the planet is actually inhabited, braves one of the periodic severe sandstorms, and collapses in a heap on the doorstep of the makeshift human colony.

It seems that, several years ago, a colonists’ ship bound for somewhere else crashlanded here, before it was even designated the Armpit of the Universe. Later, when the dumpers started dumping, the survivors can’t get the pilots’ attention or interest no matter what they do (why? because the pilots, as an extension of the government, are wantonly and needlessly eee-vil, of course!), and instead start using the refuse as raw materials to build their wind-shielded compound, cultivate indoor gardening, make clothing, etc. (Again: If the garbage being dumped is this easily reclamable, do we really need to be carting it clear to another solar system to toss it out?)

“Boy, honey, I’m sure glad that Victoria’s Secret trash ship came this week.”

They humanely lug Todd inside, and he’s billeted out for recuperation to a cute little nuclear family — Mace (Sean Pertwee), one of the town councillors or ombudsmen or whatever, his wife Sandra (the radiant Connie Nielsen), and their sweet-to-the-point-of-diabetic-coma son Nathan (twins Jared and Taylor Thorne), who was rendered mute by a bite from one of the snakes that plague the settlement (serpents in Eden? Yes, thanks, we get it), and so now communicates with big squishy eyes large enough to devour a Grayhound bus whole.

If you guess that Todd and Nathan will somehow end up learning valuable life lessons from each other… sorry, no stars. Same if you surmise that the taciturn Todd is going to spend a lot of time staring at Sandra, becoming silently attached to her. (Not that I blame him at all.)

This would, I suppose, be as good a time as any to comment on Kurt Russell’s acting. That is, if he ever exhibited any. (Rimshot!) Given that the character of Todd is all repressed and bound by brutal discipline from his earliest days, it’s no stretch that he’d be all internalized and stoic and stuff, but damn. He’s a big, silent, expressionless lump who deals with his conflict over having been “retired” by being more silent, more expressionless, more lumpish. It almost merits a press release when the man blinks.

Well, the community shows him, you know, life and all that stuff he missed growing up as a soldier, right down to the joys of planting crops and tending for living things (yes, thanks, we get it), and more particularly the joy of watching Sandra planting crops and tending living things while wearing a loose-necked shirt (yes, thanks, we get it). But Todd’s just too much of an emotional cripple to fit in; even though he proves useful rescuing a community member (Michael Chiklis!) from another windstorm, he can’t bring himself to open up (as evidenced by, well, more stoic staring), and reacts violently as he begins to reevaluate some of the “successful” missions he’s accomplished in the past (as evidenced by flashback footage of Todd shooting “hostile” civilians while, yes, staring straight ahead impassively). Mace and Sandra are distinctly not impressed when, instead of killing a snake making its way toward poor little Nathan, he gives Nathan a boot for him to kill it himself. And when Todd almost kills a villager who interrupts his workout routine (wherein he works his way through his inner anguish and stuff), well, they reluctantly have to turn him out of doors. And of course, he reacts all silently and stoically. Wow, it’s like the Man just stole his soul and stuff.

Mace, though, realizes his mistake when Nathan saves him from a snake attack with a boot. By golly, we need that survivor instinct here in this festering hellhole! And boy, does Mace choose the perfect time to go after Todd and bring him back to the fold… Because Colonel Mekum’s neo-soldiers have just made planetfall as part of a “biannual security sweep,” and the Colonel’s over-the-top orders are to treat any “trespassers” they encounter as “hostiles” — both as a battle-training exercise, and because the Colonel doesn’t want any untidy paperwork. (How did someone with such a deep-seated disdain for paperwork ever make it to such a high bureaucratic position? Does his daddy run the Empire or something?)

Looks like one of those dumb fraternity handshakes to me.

(Yawn.) I almost don’t even need to tell you what happens from here on out, do I? Mace gets killed early on (leaving the indication that, at some point beyond the closing credits, Todd will step in as Nathan’s surrogate father and make good on all those stony glances in Sandra’s direction), and the settlers have no choice but to retreat into hiding while Todd becomes a one-man army against twenty of these these tougher, faster soldiers who nonethless die in huge quantities. Oh, and naturally, it comes down to a one-on-one fight between Todd and the scarred Caine. Just in case, you know, you were wondering and uncertain.

Having not read the original script, I obviously can’t comment on how bad it may have been before the director got his paws on it. But Paul Anderson is not a filmmaker who appreciates (or at least uses in his own output) subtlety, nuance, ambiguity, or subtext, so I have no problem believing that any such elements that may have been in the script as delivered to him were dutifully scrubbed clean. What attempts there are to add soul back into the proceedings are clumsy and overblown. (I mean, come on — a keening Loreena McKennitt ballad over the montage of concrete-faced Todd learning the joys of organic gardening? Who thought that was a good idea?) The blocky, solid-colored approach to story makes the admittedly extensive set design and the top-tier special effects somehow seem cheaper than they are. It’s a teenagery emphasis on spectacle, conflict, and things that go boom at the expense of anything that could make the story more worth telling.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 58 (plus 1 warthog)
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 40
• dream sequences: 1
• ominous thunderclouds: 4
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 7
  • James Black (”Riley”) played “Klingon Helmsman” in the DS9 episode “Shattered Mirror”
  • Mark De Alessandro (”Goines”) did stunts for Insurrection
  • Elizabeth Dennehy (”Jimmy Pig’s Wife”) played Lt. Commander Shelby in the TNG two-parter “The Best of Both Worlds”
  • Max Daniels (”Red”) did stunts in Star Trek: Nemesis
  • Paul Sklar (”Melton 219″) was Patrick Stewart’s stunt double in both Insurrection and Nemesis
  • Don Pulford (”Singh”) was William Shatner’s stunt double in Star Trek 5, Star Trek 6, and Insurrection
  • Jesse Littlejohn (”Will”) played “Gabriel” in the DS9 episode “Children of Time”