Woodyanders Rugged ex-Marine Major Howard Toliver (played to the rough'n'tumble hilt by Michael Dudikoff) picks six hardened convicts from the prison that he runs to assist him in a desperate rescue mission in which they must go to Vietnam to save a kidnapped heiress. Director Louis Morneau, working from a gloriously ludicrous script by Darryl Quarles, keeps the preposterous premise zipping along at a brisk pace, stages the exciting action set pieces with rip-roaring gusto, blows lots of stuff up, and clumsily shoehorns in a heavy-handed would-be poignant redemption theme for sappy good measure. The felons are a colorfully scrappy bunch, with Cedrick Terrell as the brutish Monster and Jacqueline Obradors as the feisty Vasquez rating as the definite stand-outs. Moreover, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa snarls and sneers with lip-smacking wicked aplomb as the vicious Vinh Moc. Alas, Don Stroud isn't given much to do outside of wearing an eyepatch and sporting a fixed scowl in the minor part of a gruff general. Mauro Fiore's slick cinematography provides an impressive polished look. Terry Plumeri's spirited score hits the stirring spot. An enjoyably schlocky blast.

Leofwine_draca SOLDIER BOYZ is the kind of derivative B-movie action I enjoy watching once in a while, although I think constant exposure to these films would drive me insane. This one is a low budget, updated version of THE DIRTY DOZEN, with a youthful cast and a plot that heavily relies on RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II for its thrills and spills. This is dumb, even lunkheaded stuff, never plausible for a second: the film never explores how or why the prisoners are going on the mission or for what reason. They just kind of head off and do their stuff in a series of explosive set-pieces that make fine use of bloody squib hits to up the ante of violence.Leading this shames is '80s action man Michael Dudikoff. He's pretty unnoticeable here in the ensemble cast, and I kind of spotted that he looks a lot older than when I saw him last, and that was it. The young cast is a mixed-up group of Hispanics, tough black guys, and the token warrior woman thrown in for good measure. Character evolution is completely clichéd, with the bad guys turning good, and you can predict pretty much everything that happens. Nevertheless, I liked the drama they wrung out of the story, with Channon Roe's Neo-Nazi character taking top honours as the most entertaining in the film. A subdued Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa hangs around on the sidelines as the chief villain and does a little boo-hiss stuff.I didn't care much for the climax, which over relies on tons of explosions to finish things off, but there is a fun if obvious twist later on. Elsewhere the action is well delivered in a kind of '80s bombastic fashion, but there's too much silliness in the way the guys fight. Not only do we have people shooting from the hip and using AK-47s one-handed, but one guy has watched too many John Woo films and runs around with his pistols tilted on their sides at all times. It just looks stupid. Aside from this and the inane title, SOLDIER BOYZ is a passable B-thriller for those charitable enough to watch it.

lost-in-limbo Michael Dudikoff cares for delinquents… these are violent delinquents, who he would like to give a second chance to and if they choose to accept; freedom is there if they come back alive. Killers, rapists and psychotics of different backgrounds. And hey some are innocent. Hell he even negotiates a deal for 10 million dollars to a youth group. You know conning out the money of a rich tycoon who tries to hire him to rescue his daughter who has been kidnapped while doing aid work in Vietnam. So Dudikoff (who's in prison, but we never know why --- maybe it had something to do with the death of his wife and child in a drive-by shooting?) goes about picking a ragtag group of delinquent prisoners to go gangster and popping caps (you'll know what I mean when you see certain gunfire sequences) in the jungles of Vietnam. Watch as they bicker at each other, train their butts out and have a little hand-to-hand combat with the almighty Dudikoff. This is to prepare them to take on character actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tarawa (doing his usual viper shtick), his army and that helicopter. The whole thing is ridiculously obtuse and macho, but this routine b-grade in-and-out rescue mission entertains in sort of a teen version of "The Dirty Dozen". Be it from its trite script to paper-thin story and stereotypical characters looking to redeem themselves in some clichéd shape. However at least it moves at a quick pace, it's competently staged in its stunt work and there's a gratuitous amount of bloody action and hysteric slow motion. Sometimes comical and sloppy, but it's indeed gratuitous. And plus you got to have explosions. As it packs enough at the end. Too bad the climatic showdown comes to really nothing."I am the people."

Wizard-8 What we have here is yet another version of the formula that became popular with the making of "The Dirty Dozen" (though we have fewer soldiers in this movie, probably due to the low budget.) It could have been an entertaining version of the formula, but "Solider Boyz" utterly fails. To begin with, the setup is ludicrous - would a millionaire whose daughter was kidnapped allow the lead soldier he hires to have a bunch of TEENAGERS who have almost no combat experience? (Why not hire professional mercenaries?) And there are other silly things like the fact the teenagers only get about ONE DAY of training! Plus, there are plenty of clichés, such as when one solider steps on a land mine and needs to be saved from it exploding.The movie might have been made tolerable with some good action sequences, but the action sequences in this movie are horrible. All they are basically is shots of people firing guns towards the camera, over and over. It looks lazy and cheap, and so is much of the rest of the movie. The jungle locations look skimpy, and some scenes seem to be hastily shot, like when the millionaire's daughter is captured. As you can see, "Soldier Boyz" has problems going far beyond bad spelling.