The planet is supposed to be uninhabited, but decades earlier a spaceship crashed and its crew members have built themselves a world on this hostile planet. The settlers warily adopt Todd, fearing as much as respecting his abilities. Eventually, Caine and his cohorts are sent to the planet for manoeuvres and it's up to Todd to single-handedly save the settlers from these killing machines. Soldier is meant to be Shane or The Gunfighter meets The Road Warrior. But boy, did something go wrong on the way from paper to celluloid.
Soldier is an abomination.
It's a loud, violent and utterly ludicrous dinosaur of a film. This is the kind of absurd macho nonsense that Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christopher Lambert and Chuck Norris did when they were launching their screen careers. Russell is required to do little more than maintain an expressionless stare and a taut body. The rest is all explosions and fighting. At times it all plays like an episode of the TV show American Gladiators.