Your Men Are Obsolete
Soldier (1998)
directed by Paul W. S. Anderson
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Last fall, I watched Alien vs. Predator, my first Paul Anderson movie. It was great. He brought back Lance Henriksen, played fast and loose with characters and franchise mythology, and emerged with an unpretentious, easy-to-like action film.
The train was speeding down the tracks by then, but better late than never. Engineer Dave Kehr called Anderson "one of the last fully committed genre filmmakers" way back in 2011. He meant, I'm sure, the genre of Milla Jovovich. The Resident Evil franchise fell like dominoes from my queue.
Anderson, it turns out, only directed two of those: the first and fourth. He directed the fifth, whichisn't out just came out on DVD (so I haven't seen it), and he's directing the sixth next year. I guess he decided that a day without Milla is a day without sunshine. Lucky guy.
As a director, he's best in the first half hour. He likes to flip the script, in Soldier's case a clunker from David "W.S." Peoples (who shamelessly name-drops the Tanhauser Gate from Blade Runner. Don't remind me!). It begins with man-on-man chain fights and moves quickly to an off-world planet used for waste disposal.
Kurt Russell is his own brand of sunshine ("Bright!") and the slow motion tear he sheds alone is one for the ages. Anderson isn't sentimental and he doesn't waste time. But there's something strange, and ultimately kind of depressing, in rooting for the man responsible for Kurt's sociopathic reprogramming.
Sometimes everyone needs a better project. Sometimes he finds it.
directed by Paul W. S. Anderson
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Last fall, I watched Alien vs. Predator, my first Paul Anderson movie. It was great. He brought back Lance Henriksen, played fast and loose with characters and franchise mythology, and emerged with an unpretentious, easy-to-like action film.
The train was speeding down the tracks by then, but better late than never. Engineer Dave Kehr called Anderson "one of the last fully committed genre filmmakers" way back in 2011. He meant, I'm sure, the genre of Milla Jovovich. The Resident Evil franchise fell like dominoes from my queue.
Anderson, it turns out, only directed two of those: the first and fourth. He directed the fifth, which
As a director, he's best in the first half hour. He likes to flip the script, in Soldier's case a clunker from David "W.S." Peoples (who shamelessly name-drops the Tanhauser Gate from Blade Runner. Don't remind me!). It begins with man-on-man chain fights and moves quickly to an off-world planet used for waste disposal.
Kurt Russell is his own brand of sunshine ("Bright!") and the slow motion tear he sheds alone is one for the ages. Anderson isn't sentimental and he doesn't waste time. But there's something strange, and ultimately kind of depressing, in rooting for the man responsible for Kurt's sociopathic reprogramming.
Sometimes everyone needs a better project. Sometimes he finds it.
posted by NPK at 5:17 PM
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