ICE SOLDIERS
(director: Sturia Gunnarsson; screenwriter: Jonathan Tydor; cinematographer: Stephen Reizes; editor: Roger Mattiussi; music: Jonathan Goldsmith; cast: Dominic Purcell (Malraux), Adam Beach (TC Cardinal), Michael Ironside (Col. Desmond Trump), Carinne Leduc (Juliet), Gabriel Hogan (Frozen #1), Matthew G. Taylor (Frozen #2), Andre Tricoteux (Frozen #3), Camille Sullivan (Jane Frazer), Nicu Branzea(Lobokoff ), Benz Antoine (Sgt. Gibbs), Raoul Bhaneja (Bates), Kristina Nicoll (Chief Melody Ripinski); Runtime: 95; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Jeff Sackman; Sony Pictures; 2013-Canada)
“Preposterous low-budget sci-fi thriller.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Icelandic filmmaker Sturia Gunnarsson (“Beowulf & Grendel“), now based in Canada, directs this preposterous low-budget sci-fi thriller, that’s written by Jonathan Tydor. It’s set in the snowbound Canadian Arctic. When a team of scientists on October 1962 locate at their research site a crashed plane with three frozen bodies of genetically modified Soviet soldiers (Gabriel Hogan, Matthew G. Taylor and Andre Tricoteux), done by a Nazi scientist. They come to life when defrosted and massacre everyone at the base but the scientist (Carinne Leduc) who was raped. They were on a mission during the Cuban Missile Crisis to launch a terrorist attack in NYC.
It’s now fifty years later and the brilliant scientist Andrew Malraux (Dominic Purcell) is accompanied on a secret mission to look for the killing machine three soldiers by a team of soldiers led by Colonel Trump (Michael Ironside) and an expedition guide from an oil company (Camille Sullivan). After climbing a mountain, Malraux finds them frozen in a cave. When defrosted so the scientists can study them, the three overcome their sedation and go on a killing rampage and kill everyone but Malraux. He goes after them and hires a Cree trapper, TC Cardinal (Adam Beach), living alone in the tundra, to track them down before they can get to NYC.
The action on the tundra leads to explosions, wild dog attacks, more killings and a secret revealed about why the 50-year-old scientist looks so young and is so strong he can fight the freak soldiers almost evenly.
It’s a disposable B-film, whose best virtue might be in how great the snow looks.
REVIEWED ON 2/13/2017 GRADE: C