Today I bring you my review for one of the all time greatest action films, the incredibly over the top but endlessly watchable COMMANDO, If you don't know of or have never seen Commando, do your self a favor, go and watch it then come back and read my review, you owe it to your self to see it. If you have seen Commando, click read more and check out my words....
Ok
readers, I think it's time I blew the doors of this mother fucker
with a slam bang action movie review, not done one of those in a
while, so what should I review for you lovely lovely people today,
well I think I should go all the way back to the 80s for this one.
That decade was spectacularly exciting for action cinema, it was the
decade that brought us the muscles and the montage, the never ending
bullet clips and the exceedingly huge explosions. I think for me, the
greatest action film, which I mean non stop action from start to
finish, is Mark L.Lester's staggeringly brilliant COMMANDO starring
everyone's favourite Austrian body builder turned action star turned
Californian governor turned action star again, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I
remember the first time I saw COMMANDO, I thought it was the most
awesome film in the world, shit blew up, bad guys got ripped to
shreds by bullets and Arnie flips a bright yellow Porsche onto it's
side, well it was already on it's side he just put it back to normal,
right after saying an awesome one-liner as he drops a man off a
cliff. How did this film not win any Oscars, it's seriously that
fuckin' cool. When you watch an Arnie film (the man has his own
genre), you always get awesome character names, Kalidor, Conan, Gordy
Brewer, Ivan Danko, The Terminator, Trench, Jericho Cane and Harry
Tasker to name but a few, but his character in this film has the
greatest character name ever, well Lincoln Hawk is a pretty sweet
name but that's for another review, his name in COMMANDO is......JOHN
MATRIX, his surname is a computer generated world built by machines
to keep humans in. Well Matrix's daughter Jenny is kidnapped by some
really evil sum-bitches, working for a man that can only described as
a muscular, Australian Freddy Mercury that wears a chain-mail vest
because everyone knows a moustache and a chain-mail vest makes you
instantly bad ass, so bad ass that you could easily walk up to a
shark, punch it in the face and walk away unscathed, like you had
some sort of shark repellent shield surrounding you, well this
character actually is that badass and he only has one name, like
Prince and Madonna....his name is Bennett. You see Bennett and his
men have been hired by an exiled dictator who wants to blackmail
Matrix into starting a revolution to get him back into power. Matrix
is a former black ops Commando, and Bennett decides the best way to
get to him is to kill off his former team mates and kidnap his
daughter, well that was probably a bad idea as the film opens with
Matrix punching down tree's like a heavy weight boxer, so you know
shit's gonna go down when Matrix is in town. Matrix goes on a rescue
mission with the help of Rae Dawn Chong, dunno what use she was to be
honest, and they end up blowing up an island in his pursuit of Jenny.
This
film is the definition of 80s action, some people would say Rambo 2
or Die Hard was the pinnacle of hard core 80s action, but when it
boils down to it, COMMANDO, kicks their asses and throws them into a
pit of fire just because it can using it's incredible powers of
awesomeness.
This
film is non stop explosions, gun fights, fist fights and Wilhelm
screams. You know at the end of Bad Boys 2 where Michael Bay blows up
a mansion, well Arnie blows up an island, not entirely an island but
a military compound that is on the island and it's a frigging huge
explosions, he has a fight with Bill Duke where he exclaims he eats
Green Beret's for breakfast, Rae Dawn Chong blows up a shop with a
rocket launcher pointed in the wrong direction, Arnie drops from the
under carriage of 747 in mid take off, Arnie swings across a shopping
mall onto the top of a moving elevator and then we have that iconic
tooling up scene with many guns, grenades and war paint. You don't
get much more bad ass than this.
Cast
wise, they were onto a good one, Arnold does what Arnold does best,
he cast's an imposing shadow as the hulking ex black ops commando and
when you look at him you think to your self, why would someone steal
this man's daughter?, the one liner's are there, the flexing of
muscles, the shouting, all done with the behemoth's trade mark wooden
acting, but damn is he fun to watch. Bennett is played by Vernon
Wells, known mainly as the evil Wes in The Road Warrior and once
starred in a film called NAM ANGELS, about a group of bikers sent on
a rescue mission to save POW's in Vietnam, I kid you not this is an
actual film, here's a link to the IMDB page. Wells is suitably over
the top as Bennett, totally crazy but insanely watchable. Rae Dawn
Chong adds absolutely nothing to the film and if I was directing
this, I would have cut her character out, at least in They Live,
crazy eyes Meg Foster actually had a reason to be their, but here
Chong's character is utterly pointless. I bet you're wondering why I
referenced They Live? Well I did that because their characters meet
the main star in quite the same way. The always reliable Dan Hedaya
is woefully underused as the exiled dictator. Bill Duke is also under
used but David Patrick Kelly who is pretty good in The Warriors and
Dreamscape is on form as smarmy midget Sully. Alyssa Milano plays
Matrix's daughter before she got her boobs out in that vampire flick
with Martin Kemp. It's a good cast in all, but some are used less
than others.
I've
taken the piss out of COMMANDO a lot in this review but it is an
incredibly fun film, action packed from start to finish and just a
joy to watch each time. Sure it's cheesy, over the top and dumb but
it's great entertainment and that's all I look for in an action film,
you don't need films like Green Zone or Jack Reacher for your action
fix, just stick on Commando and watch shit explode, it's damn good
fun and a great way to pass 90 minutes.
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