Review: Commando

(Originally reviewed in 2012)

Before watching Commando I was thinking how hypocritical our society is that when we see a modern day, big, dumb action flick we call it shit but when we see an 80s big, dumb action flick we praise. Now after watching Commando I stand mistaken.

I can’t pin down what is so entertaining about this film, maybe because it’s just so damn entertaining, everyone is a caricature of the typical action movie role, it’s all over the top and ridiculous to the point where your disbelief is so suspended it’s giving Sully a run for his money and even then it’s still quite stupid. But it works, this film has its tongue boring a hole into its cheek, it knows it’s big, it knows it’s dumb so it goes all out to be the biggest and the dumbest.

In terms of acting, well there is not really any acting to be said, everyone just does what they’re supposed to do, Arnie is a brick shithouse cowman, he’s bulletproof, quick-witted and devoted to his daughter Jenny, played by a very young Alyssa Milano (Which made me feel very awkward). Cindy screams a lot and is generally useless until suddenly she becomes useful then we never see her again, Bennett has a moustache so that makes him the villain, he comes out with some one-liners that show how sadistic and evil he really is, some hit, some miss. And the two other main bad guys are just general bad guys, Cooke has a tough macho outlook and Sully is smarmy, creepy and little bit rapey. But we’re not here for acting we’re here to watch shit blow up.

As I said before you have to go into the film open-minded, there’s a lot that happens that just couldn’t; from stuff like John escaping a plane through the wheel to surviving a police van crash caused by a rocket launcher. John survives so much more than a usual human, he has skin of titanium while everyone else is made of candyfloss. When he started a fight in a shopping centre I thought things were getting silly then in the last half hour (of a 90 minute film) he activates God-Mode and infiltrates the compound where his daughter is being held.

The final half hour really makes the film one of the best action films, everything up to this point has been fun but that infiltration is one of the most ridiculously entertaining action sequences I’ve ever seen. Arnie is the definition of a One Man Army, armed to the teeth and beyond he mows down every SINGLE bad guy with no worry about aiming, he catches all bullets fired at him with his mouth and spits the back and when he finds the time he shits explosives just for fun. It’s big, it’s dumb.

It’s just so much fuckin fun.

Overall, just a damn entertaining film, full of action, explosions, one liners and a slight sense of parody running through the whole thing.

8/10