Commando

Deer, Dogs, Fishing, Ice Cream, I don't think I've ever seen a movie that's spent as much attention on the male protagonist's body as the carnage that body causes. I mean it, cause whoever made this movie ****ing loves the **** out of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He even gets a speedo scene.

And I can't blame 'em, just look at those rippling pecs, those rolling biceps, those steel buns, and total inability to do drama! This movie was made for him.

This is basically all you could want or reasonably expect from a Schwarzenegger movie, but with the cheese-o-meter just slightly overcranked. It's a bog-standard plot you could see from a country mile away and it's crammed full of one-liners ranging from the terrible to the epic.

There are a couple brief lulls in the story, but mostly it's fast-paced and key in the ignition. An odd bit is the music which violently kicks into gear out of nowhere giving you mood whiplash, but once it's going it's tough to talk it down.

My biggest complaint may be fairly predictable at this point, but it would have to be the female lead who mercifully evades my outright dislike by never going full love interest, but still manages to put off merely because of her half-assed inclusion into the story.


I don't mind giving Arnold a buddy, I'm all for it, but it didn't seem like they were trying here, they just threw a woman into the role to contrast his invincibility with her relative helplessness. She does have one great moment of initiative in the movie which I won't spoil (suffice it to say it was a great fakeout), but altogether I think my biggest issue is Arnold's character barely acknowledges her at all.

She has an extremely flimsy foundation for breaking the law multiple times to follow him around despite not knowing him at all and she doesn't even have his positive reinforcement to encourage her, they even make a joke out of him snuffing her for asking questions, come on! Give us something! Make me feel like this relationship isn't so convenient!

I've never seen Rambo, but following Arnold's transformation sequence from bikini model to super soldier, we get an extraordinarily protracted firefight in which he decimates an ENTIRE COMPOUND OF BAD GUYS, I feel like I have. The regular minions only ever manage to scar him with some grenade shrapnel, but beyond that he never gets shot and he racks up such and ungodly killcount that it's obvious that these guys went to the Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship.

People get blown up, they get shot multiple times, Arnold even gets chased into a toolshed and comes out with pitchforks and saw blades to start hackin' limbs off, it's just LUDICROUS the level of self-indulgent violence we get here. And to top it off we get a showdown with his rival who he goads into overacting manages to kill him with a bad one-liner.

Oooohh... you know how you do...

Time will tell if this proves to be one I revisit, but as it stands I only have one thing to say to people who don't like this movie: The **** is wrong with you?