|
|||||||||||||||
Well, maybe not every minute. As the film opens, we see John Matrix (Schwarzenegger) bonding with his young daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano), doing the typical father-daughter stuff. Swimming, eating ice cream, learning martial arts, hand feeding a wild deer. While laughing almost maniacally through it all. Out of everything in this movie, this little happy family montage at the beginning, as beautiful music plays and the opening credits roll, is by far the most disturbing. It is just weird, and fortunately, it doesn’t last long. Maybe three or four of you out there did not see this movie growing up, so let me tell you what it is about. John Matrix is the best commando ever, blah blah, someone is killing his former team mates, blah blah, traitor, kidnapped daughter, blow up everything and kill everyone to rescue her. Blah. William Shakespeare did not write the script for this film. Nor it can be blamed on fifty monkeys in a room banging on typewriters. It was in fact penned by Steven E. de Souza, who is responsible for fine cinematic classics such as Street Fighter: The Move and Judge Dredd. It would be easy enough to leave it at that, but the same man has also given us some genuine classics, such as 48 Hrs. and Die Hard, and looking at his long list of writing credits, I would have to say that the man turns out screenplays exactly as good as the ideas given to him- Die Hard is a great concept, and a great movie. Street Fighter is neither. So, blame the suits at Fox for needing a movie now. As bad as everything about Commando is, it still turns out to be a hell of a good time. How? Well for starters, everyone on the film knew they were making a giant ball of celluloid cheese when they were doing it, and it shows. They did not get all pretentious and take it seriously. Cast and crew had fun with the thing, and that in turn makes the movie fun to watch. Commando is first and foremost an example of Arnold doing what Arnold does best (and I am not talking about being Governor of my home state of Kahhleeefoneeeuhh) and that is run around with a bunch of guns destroying the crap out of pretty much everything that is destructible and leaving a trail of hacked, shot, and impaled bodies in his wake. All of that pretty much sums up what this film is about, and no can do it like Arnold. In fact, the movie ended up being so good at what it was doing, it spawned the whole ‘80s mindless action flick craze. As the first in that niche, it still stands as one of the best, and, dare I say it, holds up remarkably well over twenty years after its release. The reason for that is that again that Commando knows exactly who its audience is and what it is supposed to accomplish, and plays perfectly to those ideals. Now, it has been a long time since I watched Commando. Apparently, this Director’s Cut adds three scenes back into the film, but I couldn’t tell which ones they were, save one, which is not really an added scene but the same scene with a bit different dialogue- a very young and gap toothed Alyssa Milano telling her captor how nice it would be to see her father “kick you ass”. In the theatrical release, it was “smash your face in”, as I recall. A little change, but it works extremely well, and I got a good chuckle out of it. Arnold, as always, plays a rather deadpan sort of character, because he is incapable really of playing anything else. That’s ok, because like I said, he is the best at it. The reason it always works so well is because the people making his films always do a really good job of casting his opposite. Rae Dawn Chong gives a great performance as the uptight woman whose life is suddenly turned upside down after meeting John Matrix. One of the best scenes in the movie is when, after a massive brawl and shootout in a mall, they go screaming away in her car (which he is slowly destroying) and she is going on hysterically about everything that has been happening to her, and at the end she looks at Arnold and asks, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” “No,” he deadpans, taking no notice of her behavior. It is funny in how it relates to everything that has happened so far in the film, and is representative of much of what you will see in Commando. I went in to this viewing after an unfortunate bout of a movie called Two Weeks. (See my review of that film elsewhere on this site.) I was depressed at the beginning, convinced I could enjoy this old movie and ready to have yet another of my favorite classic films revealed for a piece of junk, but by the end of Commando I was feeling great. Happy, macho, ready to kill something to eat and take my wife in a manly fashion. That is why you should get this new version of Commando. Plus, if you don’t, Arnold will come back, and get legislative on your ass. -Ed-
|
|||||||||||||||
