August 23, 1996

SOLO is a sci-fi action movie starring Mario Van Peebles (EXTERMINATOR 2, DELIVERY BOYS, RAPPIN’, JAWS: THE REVENGE, POSSE, FULL ECLIPSE, GUNMEN, HIGHLANDER III, PANTHER) as an android super soldier. General Clyde Haynes (Barry Corbin, MY SCIENCE PROJECT) explains the idea upfront: “He’s proficient at all types of combat. He has no family, no friends, not even a Social Security number. If he’s wounded beyond repair, we throw him away. No guilt, no worries, no medical benefits. No one will cry when Solo is gone. We’ll simply build another one.” (Personally I think it’s rude that he says that right in front of him.)

One issue with this two billion dollar program comes out in the first mission we see, an attack on an airstrip being built for rebels in an unnamed South American country. (No, not Val Varde, I think I would recognize it.) When Solo sees that civilians are being forced to build the airstrip it clearly upsets him, and he overrides his commands to avoid blowing them up. (Also he takes home a tarantula as a pet.) There’s a great part where the humans detonating the bombs on the outskirts have given up on Solo and abandoned him, then there’s a thunk on their helicopter and he’s hanging from the bottom.

Afterwards his creator (?), the young hotshot scientist Dr. Bill Stewart (twentysomething Adrien Brody!) can sense his trepidation, and is impressed that a program somehow has emotions. (Disclaimer that I feel like I need to include in every other sci-fi review now: this is a completely not real sci-fi concept that has poetic meaning in fictional stories, but if someone today is telling you it will really happen they are a scammer, a mark, or a kook, in my opinion.)

The General and especially his asshole colonel Frank Madden (William Sadler, BILL & TED’S BOGUS JOURNEY) are pissed at Solo, who argues that he’s programmed to prevent harm to noncombatants. Madden, of course, claims the civilians count as combatants because they’re “working for” the rebels.

So the General tells Dr. Bill to take Solo back to Palmdale and reprogram him. I like that this is not the mad type of scientist, he’s a nice guy who asks to be the one to tell Solo, because “It’s the right thing to do.” Before he can, though, Solo’s computers intercept a transmission about the orders, and the self-preservation part of his directives causes him to immediately get in a helicopter and fly away. So long, bozos.

They chase him but lose him when he crashes his copter into a cliff and blows up. He hides out in a cave/ancient temple as his power runs out and he can’t switch to reserves because he was damaged on the mission. This causes him to fritz out and flash back to when he was skinless and the doctor was going through files trying to find a soldier’s face to give him, but also he had a basketball game on and Solo saw Michael Jordan on a commercial and said, “Like Mike.” (I guess Bill’s not that good at likenesses, because bald Mario Van Peebles was as close as he could get.)

Before Solo is entirely drained he saves a little boy named Miguel (Abraham Verduzo, the kid from DESPERADO) from a snake, so the villagers – the same civilians he spared earlier, I believe – want to give him a hero’s burial. When the tyrannical rebel leader Rio (Demián Bichir shortly before PERDITA DURANGO) interrupts the funeral Solo wakes up and beats his ass. I kinda like that the rebels suck too, they’re not a righteous movement that the colonialists are trying to put down. This way we’re invited to align only with the civilians, and not any of the war fighters.

Some of these peasants think Solo is a forest spirit called Yacayo, but they figure out he’s a robot when he wires their TV into his robot parts to recharge. So it turns into kind of a SEVEN SAMURAI or 13 ASSASSINS deal where Solo agrees to help them defend themselves. They hire him, with electricity as payment. I like how when the shit goes down he doesn’t fight off the intruders himself, he points at different people to signal them to set off various Ewok type booby traps and shit. (Well, also he drops down like a hanging bat to crack a guy’s neck, throws a log, etc.)

Madden figures out if Bill joins the mission he can use him as a hostage, but that also means Bill can bring Solo the new chip he needs. Solo fights all the soldiers and defeats them but there’s one more surprise: the new, improved model played by Sadler. This time they not only made him unfeeling, but gave him a futuristic black uniform and giant hand cannon (removable). A physically superior machine, but very literally-minded, so Solo’s human connections and learning put him on top.

The action is pretty boilerplate, but fine. Stunt coordinators are Tom Muzila (DEADFALL, THE HUNTED), Julian Bucio (stunts in DESPERADO) and the legendary Buddy Joe Hooker (THE ARRIVAL). Solo does some cool things, like shoot a rope across a canyon and slide down one-handed. It could probly use a few more super-human feats like that. The robot vs. robot cave battle is cool, though, with some super speed and strength involved. Van Peebles is good at looking blank, and vaguely confused by humans. He has some good robot movements. Also he got into unnecessarily good shape for the shirtless parts.

As usual, Sadler is a good, hammy antagonist, and it’s fun having Brody as the conscience of the American humans. As young as he is, the future two time Oscar winner and one time Predator fighter had already been in several movies: NEW YORK STORIES, THE BOY WHO CRIED BITCH, KING OF THE HILL, ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, TEN BENNY, and BULLET. It seems like they knew he was on the upswing, letting him dress “cool” in the way he probly wanted to, gold chains, a baggy t-shirt, not the stereotype of a scientist at all. In less than a year he’d be with Terence Malick and most of Hollywood filming THE THIN RED LINE. (I assume this movie got him that role.)

SOLO is based on the 1989 novel Weapon by Robert Mason. In the book he’s indoctrinated to believe the U.S. is always right, and even won the Vietnam War, and he ends up specifically in Nicaragua. Mason’s first book was Chickenhawk (1983), a memoir of his experiences as a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. Weirdly, New World Pictures announced a movie adaptation of that to be directed by John Carpenter, but obviously that never happened.

Solo was actually the title of Mason’s 1993 sequel to Weapon, in which Solo goes to New York and befriends a homeless woman and hacks Merrill Lynch for her. They shoulda made that movie too.

Mason was very interested in theories about the technology involved, so much so that he includes a bibliography “for those readers interested in further information on the subject of artificial intelligence.” Also, his Solo had a black carbon-fiber exterior. On his website he writes, “In 1995, WEAPON was made into the movie SOLO starring Mario Van Peebles. The best thing I can say about the movie is that it’s nothing like the book.”

Therefore I may have to give screenwriter David Corley (who later wrote the Van Damme movie SECOND IN COMMAND) the most credit for what I like about the movie. It’s a solidly structured story putting the rogue super soldier in the role of a wandering gunslinger, samurai or martial artist who finds himself stranded and helps the bullied residents of a small town or village to stand up to their tormenters. That’s a cool type of story to mash up with a robot movie.

You know what, I barely remembered SOLO, and I’ll probly forget it again. But I actually think it’s a pretty solid little studio b-movie. Its reported budget is lower than THE ARRIVAL, or even FLED, but I enjoyed it more. It’s able to create the world it needs to with some jungle, some explosions, occasional makeup effects and computer readouts. Unfortunately for the investors or whatever it only made back about a quarter of that money in theaters. But maybe this was more video/cable fare anyway.

Director Norberto Barba had only done the Virginia Madsen vs. Yakuzas movie BLUE TIGER (1994) and an episode of Vanishing Son. Since this he’s strictly worked for the small screen, including the tv movie TERROR IN THE MALL, and one episode each of Blade: The Series, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, and Reacher. His law enforcement and intelligence affiliations include (in chronological order) CSI: Miami, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, CSI: NY, NCIS: Los Angeles, Chicago Justice, S.W.A.T., FBI, Law & Order, CIA, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

tie-ins:

Dark Horse Comics released a two-issue adaptation of the movie, written by Rick Geary

P.S. CARPOOL also came out 8/23 and I did watch it but I’m sorry Fred, I didn’t think it was funny and don’t have much to say about it. At least it had some old school stuntwork – a car crashing out of one structure into another, and a little one take stunt show that happens during the end credits.