सोलो

Solo is a pretty good movie. Mario Van Peeble is good as Solo, the andriod soldier that learns to think for himself. When he escapes from his superiors and takes refuge in a small mexican village, he agrees to help the villagers defend themselves against a rebel and his army. The action scenes are good, and the fight at the end between Solo and the bad android is awesome.

Solo is an action movie about a Terminator-like android that is constructed and trained for the military. When a flaw is discovered, he is issued to be deprogrammed. Rather than face death, he chooses to flee into the jungles of Central America, where he takes refuge in a village. The military chases him into there, leading into a big action feast.

Mario Van Peebles does a decent performance the android. His movements and gestures look mechanical enough to get the job done. Actual scientific realism is abandoned in order to make a good action hero. And it works out; the action scenes aren't that spectacular, but they aren't all too bad either. The acting from the other characters is pretty bad, but I was not expecting anything too good. The special effects were decent as well.

Solo is decent as an action flick, but very forgettable. It lacks the substance that most movies possess. But if you just want to pass a couple hours without much thinking, this will get the job done.

Even the most precursory glance at his extensive film work, clearly shows that Mario Van Peebles has sadly never really made it as big in Hollywood as he deserves. Up until now for instance, his most well known roles have been the (enjoyably OTT) sorcerer Kane in Highlander 3 and as effective fish chow in the utterly risible Jaws: The Revenge.

The majority of his work tends to have been low key, direct to video fodder which is a real shame, as in my opinion, Peebles is a decent actor with a lot of unfulfilled potential. For instance, I know not whether he ever auditioned for the part, but I would be willing to bet that Peebles would have made a much better Blade than Wesley 'Pay my taxes?!!!' Snipes.

Unfortunately, it has to be said that the film reviewed here is hardly likely to help Peebles career any either. In fact, I am slightly puzzled as to why he would have ever taken such a role in the first place (the money was good perhaps?) Peebles plays the eponymous hero of the title – a state of the art, cybernetic weapon who it turns out is struggling with the contradictory nature of the callus orders given unto him by his superiors. On one such mission Solo deliberately sabotages the objective in order to spare some innocent civilians, much to the anger of his commanders who subsequently order him to be decommissioned. However, getting wind of this, Solo decides that self preservation is of the highest order and goes on the run, hotly pursued by a relentless, sadistic colonel (the ever superb William Sadler) who has a particular grudge against what Solo represents.

Ending up in a small South American village, Solo is gradually befriended by the locals and begins to learn the nature of humanity. In addition, he serves as their protector from a ruthless gang of bandits. Of course, things don't stay happy for long and the army eventually locate him whereupon much explosive action ensues. Finally, Solo discovers that he is in fact not the only one of his kind when another android is sent to destroy him. Needless to say, there can be only one winner…..

Once again, I do wonder why Peebles chose to play such a role; As a guide, if you've ever watched (the gorgeous!) Jerry Ryan in Star Trek: Voyager as Seven Of Nine, then you'll be able to clearly picture exactly how Peebles plays his part. Certainly, the role hardly pushes him as an actor in any way. On the other hand, Peebles did work himself into awesome physical shape for the role and apparently undertook some arduous military/combative style training regimes in order to capture the action authentically (although it has to be said that said scenes have not been exactly well handled by the director here).

Whilst Peebles may not get to display at least his acting muscles, as mentioned before, Sadler is excellent as the psychopathic Colonal and it's also great to see an early role here from none other than Adrian Brody of The Pianist fame.

At the end of the day, if approached in the right frame of mind, this proves to be a fairly enjoyable, if low key flick, albeit one that seems to take itself perhaps a little too seriously for my liking.

Nonetheless, for less discriminating action junkies and fans of the whole android sub genre, this is a harmless enough way to spend an hour and a half.

This little b-grade straight-to-video action joint won't win any awards for it has been done to death, but for what it is… it made for a passable outing despite the predictable formulaic nature of the story, silly occurrences and mechanical action set-pieces. "Solo" actually had I thinking of Paul W. S. Anderson's big budgeted "Soldier" that came out two years later. The two surprisingly had some similarities just that "Solo" were set in modern times and in the humid jungle terrain, compared to the futuristic backdrop for "Soldier" which was much more expansive across the board. The basic plot is almost identical. Even a sequence involving a poisonous snake. While the screenplay for "Solo", is actually adapted off Robert Mason's novel "Weapon" and has shades of "Universal Soldier". Solo is cyborg that was created to be the perfect killing machine, but it disobeys an order when it meant killing innocent civilians. The army isn't particularly happy with it, so it plans to re-create it. But before doing that Solo escapes in to the South American jungle. There he helps out a small, poor village that are terrorised by rebel soldiers by providing them fighting spirit. But to top that off the Americans want their creation back, so a small elite group is sent in to get him back. Director Norberto Barba's handling for most part is rushed and lacklustre, where by hiding it with jaded editing and its techno special effects. Still it has some gusto in its climatic exchanges, especially in the one that comes from nowhere that sees two androids colliding. Don't try to compute the script either, sometimes sappy in its emotional details but never does it go beyond its comic-book approach. Mario Van Pebbles is surprisingly convincing, embodying that steely approach but also showing cracks of humane qualities (trying to understand the meaning of a bluff/joke and freaking you out with his cackling). Quite old-hat in the character portrayal, but well done. Having fun William Sadler provides the psychotic edge, as an army Colonel who disapproves of the Solo creation and would do anything to see it fail. "First rule of dealing with the devil. Don't". Going gawky is Adrien Brody as Solo's creator and Barry Corbin is the General in charge of the project. Soulless, but reliable entertainment.

"When you hunt a fox, bring your own dogs".

I just watched "Solo", and I don't think it's as bad as some reviewers have suggested. I'm not an action movie aficionado, but I found the movie an enjoyable, maybe mindless, hour-and-a-half. Mario van Peebles did his best to present himself as a cyborg with human tendencies. Barry Corbin is always enjoyable when in his Maurice Minnifield persona. Adrien Brody is wonderfully emotive as the scientist who cares about his creation. My only question, after watching the movie, is how Solo continues to survive without anyone to repair his power management chip.