One of the worst ever

I find it hard to believe that so many people are praising this awful film. It fails on so many levels it is laughable.

Aside from the well known fact that Kurt Russell has about 150 words to say in the film (most of them of the "Yes sir" variety) nothing he says is interesting, he could have been completely mute and it wouldn't have made a difference. Heck none of the characters has much to say.

I've never been in the military but the colonel and other commanders are an embarrassment. I doubt they would have been promoted above seargent without intense boot licking. The colonel himself would have needed family connections and string-pulling to get where he did.

The idea that the military would take babies and raise them as depicted, even going so far as killing children that fall behind is dispicable. Granted this is supposed to be sci-fi but it takes place in roughly modern times. And what does all this intense training produce? Soldiers that walk into battle with guns blazing and know nothing about ducking or finding cover. A few first year rookies could have lobbed some grenades at these "Super Soldiers" and killed half of them. I am simply not impressed with the results (except they can run long and fast.) The half-dozen or so guys from "Predator" would have made mince-meat of the 20+ Soldiers shown here. The fact that Kurt Russell's Todd does indeed single handedly wipe out 20+ opponents without being shot or seriously wounded says something. (Particularly embarrassing is the scene where several Soldiers run toward what they think is the sniper only to find one of thier own dead with two guns set up with a string. Aren't troops trained not to run directly into machine gun fire like that?)

So after being choosen at birth, raised, trained and hardened to be a Soldier on the day of the big battle you are put behind a large gun on a super-ATV, or worse yet manning the search light, in plain view with little protection. You're just asking to be shot up, and hey! You are! Congrats! Can parents sue the military for gross negligence? Oh yeah, these guys have no parents, never mind.

The movie takes place sometime in the next 40-50 years. Not only has faster-than-light travel been discovered (and anti-gravity!) it is so fast and common that man has spread far out into the galaxy, to its edge and beyond. Yeah, sure. Metal too is so worthless that huge piles of it, city loads, can be dumped on a distant planet at the galaxy's edge. What!? Not in the next 50 years. Surely some better use for an old aircraft carrier can be found, housing for the homeless for example. (Nuclear bombs aren't valuable either since every jerk colonel with a squad can have one and use it at whim.)

Are these enough reasons to dislike this film? I won't even get into the sappy situation with the lost colonists and thier rejection of Todd (tell me you couldn't see that one coming) or the change of heart after the kid kills a snake (that too.) I've said enough already.

-Doughdee222 "I'm a realist, not a pessimist. The real world is pessimistic by nature."