Commando (1985)

I told this movie I was going to review it last.  I lied.  Commando, 900th post, let's do this.

Commando stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Colonel Matrix, the greatest army guy in the history of army guys.  Shit goes bad when baddie Dan Hedaya, deposed dictator of a Banana Republic, has Vernon Wells and some other bad dudes kidnap Arnie's daughter, Alyssa Milano, and he'll kill her if Arnie doesn't kill the current leader of Hedaya's country.  Arnie won't take this shit lying down though, and now he's got 11 hours to get to Hedaya before the plane he's supposed to be on lands there and they realize Arnie's not on it.  Luckily he has help in the form of flight attendant/beginner pilot Rae Dawn Chong.  All fucking hell is going to break loose, and nothing will be left but the bodies.



Do you need me to tell you that this is a 90-minute awesomefest?  It's my all-time favorite action film, just for the pure actioness of it.  First off, you have the great hero in Arnie's Colonel Matrix.  How do you not want this guy to prevail?  Then you have fantastic baddies in not only Hedaya and Wells, but also Bill Duke as a lower-down baddie, and David Patrick Kelly as the heel.  Rae Dawn Chong is only a damsel in distress as far as her being kidnapped initially by Schwarzenegger, but beyond that she's his partner, and is a lot of fun to watch too.  Finally the action is there, from the great scenes in the mall and Arnie's house, to the fantastic finale that ups the kill count exponentially.  I could write on how amazing this movie is until I'm dead tired.

One of the fascinating things about Arnie's career is that, while other stars like Seagal and Van Damme went into DTV flicks, he became governor of California.  But this was before then, when he really only had the Conan films and Terminator to his credit, and after Commando he exploded in stardom.  A movie like this starts and ends with the hero, and Arnie sells it from the moment his biceps are on screen holding up an enormous log.  Larger than life, one-liner after one-liner, this is what we want from our action lead, and his Col. Matrix is one reason why I'm so hard on current action films that don't give us a hero this great.  Would we root for Arnie today if he were mean-mugging in a white tank top and telling us he lives his life a quarter mile at a time?  No chance.



One thing I've never understood about the modern action flick is that they cast women in the classic "lead's lover/damsel in distress role", but then in the behind the scenes featurettes try to tell us her character is something bigger than that, like she's a strong woman and not just window dressing for the hero, when glorified window dressing is often all she is.  The reason why I've never understood that, is that we only have to look at Rae Dawn Chong's character in Commando to see a real female lead in a male-centered action flick who isn't just window dressing.  She's barely a damsel in distress only by virtue of the fact that Arnie catches her, and she's not his love interest.  Instead, she's a well-rounded, fully developed character who contributes to Arnie's quest in vital ways that made his success possible.  I'm not saying an action film can't have a female lead who is de facto window dressing or the classic damsel in distress; but don't sell us that she's Rae Dawn Chong in Commando when she isn't.  Sometimes I can't believe this macho bullshit...

Vernon Wells as Bennett is probably the most memorable baddie in Commando, especially because of his name being attached to one of the most famous lines in the film: "Let off some steam Bennett".  I think in 2013, we aren't sure what to do with him, because he's pretty sinister, but he's also wearing a chainmail tank top over a black shirt with leather pants and big boots.  As much as it's 80s leather bar enforcer crossed with Philippine post-apocalyptic exploitation flick extra, it's also very unflattering to Wells's ample frame.  That's the thing though, when the rest of the movie is that awesome, Wells's outfit becomes awesome too.  Besides, he does need to be a little off, because anyone who turns down $100,000 to do a job for free isn't playing with a full deck and is likely the kind of guy who dresses like Bennett does.



I asked my friend, who's about seven years older than me, what he thought about Commando while we were rock climbing today-- or rather, he was rock climbing and I was belaying him while flailing ineptly on the rock when it was my turn to climb-- and one thing he mentioned was the music.  He liked the fact that Commando didn't have any hit popular music or a soundtrack it was trying to sell (he forgot about "We Fight for Love", but I know what he's saying).  Let's look at the music in Commando then, because music seems to be a big deal in modern action films.  What was that sound in there for most of it, a xylophone, or steel drums?  And a fucking saxophone too.  Wait, you mean it wasn't a bunch of asshats in a Sevendust knock-off playing the same three guitar chords and the same scratchy, screaming lyrics?  That's right, one of the best (and in my opinion the best) action films of all time rocked your ass with a fucking xylophone (or steel drums) and a saxophone.  That's the thing, you don't need to dress your movie up with silly crap when the action is as fantastic as it is here.  I am a mountain, surrounded by your love you are a fountain.  That's all you need.

My ultimate judge for how good an action film is is how many fist pumps it evokes from me.  For instance, Fast Five did one: that scene at the end when all hope appears to be lost, and Vin Diesel asks his crew who's with him to get the money back, and after none of them say anything, we hear The Rock in the background say "I'll ride with you Toretto."  Commando has more fist pumps than I could count, sometimes multiple fist pumps for one moment.  Even now, seeing it again for this review after having seen it myriad times before, the fist pump quotient was still high.  This might be why I'm so hard on a lot of action movies from the 2000s, not because so few are Commando, but because so few realize how good Commando is, or what makes Commando good.  Maybe it's wrong that I'm so hard, but on the other hand, I think when I say a movie is good, you at least know this is the kind of standard I'm measuring it against.  I don't think I'm unreasonable about that though, especially when both action fans my age and younger action fans all agree that it's the Commando and not a lot of these modern flicks that is the superior product.  Hey, it's not like I'm expecting World War III.



I'll finish this by being a little self-indulgent.  In 2007 when I started this thing, I guess I saw us getting to 900 posts, but not to be here over 6 years later, interacting with all kinds of great people on not only the site, but Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook too.  Fellow bloggers, indie directors looking for publicity, low-budget movie fans, and even higher ups like screenwriters, directors, and actors of these films I review.  It has been a fantastic experience, and hopefully it'll continue for another 900.  I want to thank all of you for your support and readership, because without you it would just be me and my buddies and Russian spammers.

As of this posting, this is available on Netflix Instant.  If you haven't seen it before, go, now, it's only 90 minutes.  If you already have-- and I'm sure you have-- then I'm sure you know why I think it's so amazing.  Again, my favorite action film of all-time.  Now I'll let you go.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088944/

The Expendables 2 (2012)

When I saw The Expendables over two years ago, I loved it. I don't know exactly what I was expecting with this second installment, but considering how much I liked the first, and looking at the names they had for part 2, I knew I had to give it a look, so let's see how it went. Also, some of our friends have already hit this one: Ty at Comeuppance Reviews, Explosive Action, The Video Vacuum, and Freddie at Full Moon Reviews.

The Expendables 2 has Sly Stallone and his band of merry mercenary men, on a mission in Eastern Europe to get something out of a safe in a plane that went down over Albania. They have a woman with them working as their safe cracker, and while Stallone doesn't like this idea, it's really more baddie Jean-Claude Van Damme he should be worried about, because it's Van Damme who has stolen this merchandise from them after they got it out of the safe. The merchandise: the a location of some weapons grade Soviet plutonium, which Van Damme hopes to sell on the black market. Can Stallone and his crew stop him?

In the initial scene, as the marauding Expendables were blasting their way to the base of some Nepalese separatists who had some Chinese businessman hostage, I thought to myself "What am I doing here? Didn't I already do this two years ago?" The film does get better though; it has tons of inside jokes for us action fans, it has some nice big action scenes and solid pitched battles, and Van Damme was excellent as the head baddie. I also loved Nan Yu's Maggie character, and Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis all have fun small supporting roles. While not the novelty that the first one was, it was still a fun time, and I'm not sure you can ask for anything more than that from your action movie.

For me, Jean-Claude Van Damme won this movie. It probably hurt his soul to have to lose that last fight to Stallone, but let me tell you JCVD, you had me when you roundhouse kicked that knife into The Kid's heart. Was that not one of the best baddie kills ever? Scott Adkins holds it up so the point is facing The Kid's heart, and Van Damme roundhouse kicks the butt end. See, here's the thing Mr. Van Damme, while the fights in the movie are fake, the performances are real, so while you fake lost your fight with Stallone, you beat him by turning in the best performance. 

And then there's the film's other Hall of Famer, Dolph Lundgren. He seems to be more comic relief, right? I loved the inside joke about his history in getting into the film biz. On the other hand, he didn't have the big role he had in the first one. The story didn't revolve around him in any way, he didn't have any big fights, he just cracked some jokes and carried some big guns. It was almost like he was there to be the butt of the jokes too. I don't know how I feel about that. Yes, it's good that he can laugh at himself and not take himself so seriously, but damn it, I don't want him to be Stallone's Harpo Marx.

This gets me to a main problem The Expendables series has. Because we have so many stars, their overall star contributions are severely diluted. Even our baddie, Van Damme, wasn't in the film that much. But let's look at it by the numbers: Scott Adkins, 1 fight, and that was with Jason Statham; Statham only had 2, that one with Adkins and another, and though both were really sweet, it was still only two in a 110-minute film; Dolph had none; Van Damme just had his one with Stallone; and Jet Li was in and out so fast he also had none. It felt like this kind of thing was mitigated better in the first one, and who knows what will happen in the third--at the very least I'd like more Charisma Carpenter.

When I watched the first one with some friends a couple years ago, my buddy's wife commented: "Why does the girl always have to be kidnapped?" I don't know if Stallone's botox and HGH gave him supersonic hearing, but he answered her complaint just the same, because, not only do we not have the damsel in distress construct, but we have a woman in the crew who is equal parts feminine and powerful in Nan Yu. One could make the complaint though that there was still an element of chauvinism in the fact that all the other guys in the cast--other than Adkins, and Liam Hemsworth of course--were much older, while the one female was in her early thirties. But hey Stallone, you wanna go James Woods, it's whatever floats your boat.

And with that, let's wrap this up.  The Expendables 2 is a very fun movie. It doesn't do anything so horrible to turn me off, the action is there and big, and there were plenty of humorous moments. On the other hand, you've been on this road before, you know what you're going to see, no wheels being reinvented, which isn't exactly a bad thing, but for something that's supposed to be bigger and badder than the original, it's not a good thing either.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

The Expendables (2010)

Had this film come out before we started the DTVC in May of 2007, it would have been saved for a milestone post, like 100 or 500 or something. Because it's a new release on DVD, I wanted to get the review in on the day it was out-- especially since we're far off from the next milestone number-- so even though this is post number 558, we're going to treat it like a milestone post, suspending our usual 8 paragraph 3 image format for a 10 paragraph 4 image special edition. Luckily, I don't sell issues of this like comic books, because you'd be paying ten bucks for the reverse hologram cover-- or not, and I'd be stuck with a stack of them collecting dust and not going up in value.

The Expendables stars Sly Stallone as the leader of the eponymous mercenary group, experts at taking care of business and selling their talents to the highest bidder. When Bruce Willis comes knocking, wanting a crew to go into a Latin American island to take out the general in control there, Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks the idea is madness, so his merc group won't take the job. Sly likes the idea of the $5 mill Willis is willing to pay them, so he agrees. On a reconnaissance mission, he and Jason Statham realize things are pretty rough, that there's not just a general, but an evil Eric Roberts and a lot of soldiers, so they initially decide they want no part. Then Stallone thinks about the girl they left behind, who wanted to stay and fight for her people, and he decides he wants to stand for something too, and go back in there. His crew agrees, leading to one of the greatest finales in action movie history.



I considered using a metaphor to describe this, like how I said Righteous Kill was like the old timers game with Pacino and De Niro, I was thinking maybe The Expendables was the fantasy camp. But then I realized that that would be selling this film short. Selling short a film that punches you in the face with awesomeness. Selling short Sly Stallone, who said "hey, the shit we did back in the 80s and 90s, a lot of people really liked that shit. Fuck Matt Damon and Toby McGuire, let's get some motherfuckers that people really want to see kicking ass, and let's show them kicking ass!" He took the great films we love from the 80s and 90s, and he made one that was faster, louder, and more powerful, yet without losing what made those movies so awesome. This was Commando on steroids-- or HGH-- and a middle finger to everyone who thumbed their nose at the shit we grew up with.

We spend so much time on here ruing newer films for not getting it. Not getting what we want as an audience. Look at Jean-Claude Van Damme, who brags in JCVD about how he turned down a role in The Expendables because he didn't like what Stallone was offering him. Are you kidding? Your fans wanted your ass in this, kicking ass with all the rest of these bad asses. We don't care about what kind of role you get, or about how much Stallone didn't stroke your ego, we want to see you in this enormous pile of awesomeness. Stallone has come through, and he got everyone on board to understand his vision. He made this movie as much for us as he did for them, and I'm stoked about that. Thank you, we all appreciate it.



As always, we need to look at the Hall of Famers, and out of all the names, we only have two: Dolph Lundgren and Gary Daniels. Lundgren, as he does in almost every big screen film, plays something of a baddie. He actually hits Gary Daniels in one scene, reminding us of what we didn't get in Retrograde. The best part was his fight with Jet Li, because he was able to let rip with his Olympic-class martial arts talent, probably one of the best scenes we've ever seen him in. Do you see him telling us, his fans "I didn't do the film because I didn't like the role Sly had for me"? Hell no! He delivers. Gary Daniels is interesting, because we'd been doing some of his early roles here recently, and this was reminiscent of those. Very small part as Eric Roberts' hachetman-- second in command to Stone Cold Steve Austin-- but yet, he also has a great fight, with Jet Li and Jason Statham at the same time.

I commonly have a gripe with a movie, especially an action movie, that suspends the action in order to get melodramatic on us, so you're probably wondering what I thought of Mickey Rourke's tear-filled tale of an incident in Bosnia he witnessed. That's one of the benefits to having such a large and diverse cast, you get guys like Mickey Rourke, who was an amazing Sean Penn performance in Milk away from a best actor Oscar. Mickey Rourke can make a scene like that compelling, and more importantly, make it work. Not every movie has the advantage of such a deep cast, which is why I'm often annoyed when they try to do what Mickey Rourke did here, because it seldom comes off.



If I have any complaint with The Expendables-- and can I really have any complaint?-- it's that we don't have more Charisma Carpenter. Isn't any movie better for having more Charisma Carpenter? Exactly, she's awesome. She turned forty a few months ago, which is just crazy to me, because she doesn't look nearly that old. She plays Statham's ex-girlfriend, and when he finds out her new boyfriend hit her, he goes down to where the guy is playing basketball, and destroys him and all his buddies. Amazing scene, and one I think all these TapOut/punchfighting movie makers should look at that for how to make their fight scenes in their films. Anyway, I'm getting off track, this paragraph was meant to be about how much I like Charisma Carpenter. Hopefully, if Stallone makes a sequel to this, he'll put more of her in it.

Speaking of the abusive boyfriend, this movie adds an element that not every action films includes, and that's a strong statement about violence against women. In every case that a male character does something to physically attack a female character, that character is dealt with harshly, which is as it should be. People always focus on the violence in a film like this as a bad example for kids, but it's so extreme and so (almost) cartoonish to be taken seriously. On the other hand, how many action films or old gangster and Film Noir pictures show women being dominated or treated violently, without immediately denouncing such behavior. This movie does that, and does it in a very powerful way. Kudos for that.



On top of the great action, all of the characters were in other great scenes where there was no action at all. All of this could have easily been about them, they could have used those scenes to revel in each other's stardom, but they didn't. They made those scenes about us, their fans, and as such, they were tons of fun to watch. It just gets back to what made this movie so great, that Stallone understood what he was doing and what we wanted, and he made it all happen.

Plain and simple, The Expendables delivered on what it promised. If you saw it in the theater, see it again. Put it on your Christmas list, or run out to the store to buy it because you can't wait. I'm curious to check it out on my buddy's Blu-ray player myself. This was the movie we were hoping for, and seldom do any films ever give us what we're hoping for.

(As an aside, for the first time ever I got an error message for having too many tags. I didn't even know there was a limit!)

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320253/

Batman and Robin (1997)

I first saw this in the theater when it came out, and was definitely under-whelmed. I think by then I'd tired of the big budget Bat-sequels with myriad Hollywood actors, product tie-ins, and ubiquitous soundtrack songs. I haven't seen it since then, but was intrigued when it was number on on Empire.com's 50 Worst Films Ever. I mean, I remembered it being bad, but worse than say, Catwoman?

Batman and Robin is the fourth in the Caped Crusader series started by Tim Burton. This time George Clooney takes the helm, with Chris O'Donnell as Robin and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl there at his side. As far as villains menacing Gotham City, Arnold Schwarzenegger steps up as Mr. Freeze, and Uma Thurman plays the ever sexy Poison Ivy. No one famous played Bane as far as I could tell. Anyway, does the plot matter? I didn't think so.

In the first ten minutes, there's a goofy fight between Batman and Robin and Mr. Freeze and all his henchmen. They're ice skating and playing hockey with a large diamond. It was reminiscent of the old TV show, and I thought maybe I just didn't get it when I watched it the first time. But then, back at the Batcave, O'Donnell and Clooney have this stilted, poorly written argument about Clooney holding O'Donnell back, and I understood better why this was panned. It had its positives: Uma Thurman was great as this kind of Bette Midler send-up of Poison Ivy; the sets, when not covered in fluorescent green, were really cool, especially Arkham Asylum and the observatory; and Alicia Silverston was really hot and George Clooney looked great in a tux.

But neither Clooney nor Silverstone worked as superheroes. Clooney is probably one of the coolest men alive, which you think would work in his favor, but it turned out he was too cool to play Batman. I'd even say he's too cool to play James Bond. I say this because he's more sophisticated than that type of material. Watch a film like Leatherheads, and you'll see what I mean. Silverstone was hot as all get out in that Batgirl costume, but she had this air head quality in her performance that made her role as a superheroine totally unbelievable. As far as O'Donnell, if I was him I'd have fired my agent after this. They made his Robin like Rob Schneider in Judge Dredd, yet then tried to make it serious, so all we were left with was being annoyed with him. Finally, Arnold was the worst. His accent works great in a one line capacity--see "Let off some steam, Bennett"--but in the world of superhero/supervillain banter, he was way off and sounded overly rehearsed. Jim Carey, Danny DeVito, Tommy Lee Jones? Yes. Schwarzenegger? No.

Let's address Empire.com's claim that this was the worst film ever. Yes, I can't argue with the Bat-nipples, and the script was all over the place, not knowing if it wanted to be tongue-in-cheek or serious; but worse than Catwoman? Worse than Highlander 2: The Quickening? Part of the reason why I think it won was because the list was put to a vote by readers. How many people do you know have seen Catwoman? Now how many do you know have seen Batman and Robin? Exactly. Yes, it wasn't great, but worst ever is a heavy indictment, and this film didn't deserve it.

I loved Uma Thurman's take on Poison Ivy. On Empire.com's blurb about the film, they quoted critic Anthony Lane's comment that all the stars put in "their worst imaginable performances." Again, that's very harsh, but in Thurman's case, incorrect as well. It's a damn comic book movie, and she was having fun with it. Unlike Schwarzenegger who was out of his league, Thurman stole every scene she was in. Yes, it was very 1970s Sonny and Cher guest appearance-y, but it worked for me. Silverstone, though nowhere near as good, was just so hot I'm not sure it mattered. One thing I didn't like, and it wasn't her fault, but the writers', was how instead of being Commissioner Gordon's daughter, she was Alfred's niece. Had they gone with the comic book version of her origin, it would've made for at least a more believable character. Supergirl with Helen Slater suddenly emerging from the water in her Supergirl outfit thinks the way this film turned Silverstone into Batgirl was contrived and nonsensical.

Films like these are usually chick full of celebrity cameos, and this was no exception. You had Vivica A. Fox in one brief scene as a throwback to the chicks that used to hangout with the villains on the old TV show, for instance. Probably best for me was Jesse "The Body" Ventura and Rolf Moeller as Arkham guards. That means that, in addition to Predator and Running Man, this film has the distinction of producing two US governors. Who's with me on starting the campaign for Moeller as governor of Maine?

Worst movie ever? No, not even close. Great movie? No, not even close. It has it moments, both good and bad, but I think more than anything, it signaled to its audience just how spent we were with the whole Batman franchise started by Tim Burton. It'll be interesting to see what the new series of films does for its third and fourth installments. The third one will sell well no matter what, just based on the first two, but if it sucks, it'll be up to the fourth one to revive it. If they fall into the trap this one did, of just throwing as many Hollywood celebs at it as possible, we could see a similar result.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000235/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

End of Days (1999)

It's New Year's Day, and I could only think of three great films set during that holiday (I don't know why I said two earlier in the week): Strange Days, Four Rooms, and this Arnold not-so-classic End of Days. It just seemed to fit with the types of films I review on here that I'd cover the last of those three today.

End of Days takes place right before the year 2000. The devil is coming to take a bride and have a kid with her, and it's up to former cop turned drunk turned head of a high-end security outfit named Jericho Cane, played by Arnold. The key is he doesn't have to kill the devil, just cock-block him long enough so that he can't impregnate Robin Tunney before the clock strikes twelve, then the poor devil will have to wait another thousand years to impregnate another chick.



I watched this recently with a buddy when he bought it to add to his Arnold collection. It was as funny then as it was now. Maybe it doesn't have the special effects 2012 does, but it has the governor of California, and even Lucas can't CG him into a movie. What's great about this one is the Bronson-esque role he takes on as a drunk down on his luck, making smoothies in the morning with pizza, booze, and Pepto in them. Then Gabriel Byrne steps in and plays a devil as good as we can imagine him doing. The action wasn't quite what you'd want from an Arnold pic, and this definitely was on the low end of his filmography, but all in all, a pretty fun picture.

After this, Schwarzenegger would only make three more pictures with him as the star: 6th Day, Collateral Damage, and Terminator 3. This one, as much as any, is really hard to rectify with the idea that he's the governor of the biggest state in our country population and economically. At the same time, you could tell that he was close to the end here, that he wouldn't be making many more films, and there was a sense that he was running the relay, holding the baton behind him, waiting for someone to take it from him-- and that someone never came. As much as Arnold may have started off as another action star, he ended his reign sui generis, and there will never be another one like him.



End of Days has a very Cathlo-centric view on religion, which makes a lot of sense, because the Muslim and Jewish calendars weren't nearing the year 2000, and Protestants aren't good with the ritual stuff you'd need for a film like this. What's interesting, is out of those four religious sects I mentioned, Catholics, at least recently, have been the least responsible for violence in the world-- whether it's Jews and Muslims fighting in the Middle East, or Bush invoking his Protestant faith when going to war in Iraq-- but it's always Catholics in movies who have secret armies and assassins. I mean even in The Godfather III, which I confess was ridiculous, despite being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, the struggle to seat a new Pope was fraught with assassinations. I'm not saying the Catholic church is the nicest thing in the world, but imagine if it was as secretly violent as it's often portrayed in cinema.

The other idea, of course, is that these Catholic super secret special forces units are in a constant literal struggle with the devil. For as many Udo Kiers as there are out there sitting in the middle of candle lit pentagrams reciting incantations, there are Rod Steigers performing exorcisms and sending Italian men into girls' brownstone apartments to kill them in a very specific holy way before the devil can impregnate them with his evil seed. It sounds ridiculous in this paragraph, but it's a pretty standard paradigm, whether Catholics are fighting vampires, ghosts, or the devil himself. Probably the best use of the paradigm, Dolph Lundgren's The Minion, where Dolph plays a KGB trained priest.



I considered getting political or waxing intellectual for this last paragraph about what the end of this decade meant, or what the end of the decade before it, which End of Day was set in, meant; but I didn't want to bore you. There's plenty enough to glean from a post about a film featuring a big budget action star whose films were becoming dinosaurs, and rather than face extinction, he got himself elected governor of California. The last ten years saw a lot of big things happen in this country, but I'd say none were more ridiculous, yet more indicative, than that one.

I have to assume most of my readers have seen this. If not, you should, just to have done it. My buddy is an Arnold completist, so he owns it. I'm sure most of you know another Arnold completist out there too, so maybe you can borrow it from that person. Then after watch Commando again, because you can never watch that too much.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146675/