Soldier (Paul W.S. Anderson, 1998)

In a standard-issue future dystopia, emotionless purpose-bred supersoldiers are sent out to do a fascistically bent state's dirty work until one falls out of favour, suffering angsty flashbacks of his denied humanity, and becomes the new prey of the rank-and-file.
In other words, Anderson and screenwriter David Webb Peoples had a nerve making this, even with the excuse that they'd be able to improve on Universal Soldier. This they do marginally, with a broodier atmosphere and less execrable dialogue, but it's hardly a Nobel-prize winning achievement from the director of Event Horizon and writer of Blade Runner. Ok, the middling former was undoubtedly the Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil culprit Anderson's career highlight, but Peoples should have resisted the urge of the wads offered to churn out what he claims is a 'sidequel' to his own highlight script. And surely do more than just chuck in nerdy references to everything sci-fi, starting of course with alternatingly constipated and weepy lead Kurt Russell's film career, but even getting round to a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy one tucked in the corner of a computer screen, FFS.

3/10