Commando (1985)

Overall Rating:
This is the closest film to receiving the coveted perfect rating yet. Only naked boobies were lacking. Definitely a top-tier bad action movie, one of the best ever made.

Why We Rented It:
In this early action classic that features his unique blend of thrills and offbeat humor, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as retired Colonel John Matrix. The ex-head of a special commando strike team, he’s forced back into action when his daughter (Alyssa Milano) is kidnapped. With the help of a feisty stewardess (Rae Dawn Chong), Matrix has only a few hours to overcome his greatest challenge: finding his daughter before she gets killed.

Our Synopsis:
The movie starts with some guys dying for no apparent reason. Then, Arnold’s old army boss comes to visit him in the mountains and tells him some of his old war buddies are getting killed. Some evil dudes raid Arnold’s house and kidnap his daughter and try to force him to kill the president of some country that’s most likely south of the U.S. Then Arnold does his Arnold-thing and, well, I’ll let you figure out the ending.

• Big Ol’ Naked Boobies:

There actually are some naked boobies in this movie, however about the only way you are going to see them is by pausing the movie and going frame-by-frame. Not that we did that…anyway, they at least made an attempt at boobies, which is more than I can say for some other movies *cough* Rapid Exchange *cough*.

• Profanation:

Commando doesn’t even bother messing around with any little-girl swears. Right from the beginning it’s f*c* this and mother fu**er. However, as anyone knows, they can’t keep up this torrid pace all movie long, and eventually it mellows down to the lighter swears, like chic*en-sh*t. Still the quick start left a lasting impression; lasting enough for that elusive perfect score.

• Ninjocity:

I thought that this movie had a very excellent progression in the action department. It started out with a lot of explosions, then settled into some nice hand-to-hand fighting, and finished with some very large and excellent explosions. The middle section of fighting was quite good, and it included Arnold fighting some guy and going through a wall. Through a wall!!! Arnold also gets to snap some guys neck and have a knife fight to the death! A knife fight to the death, are you kidding me?!? How awesome is that!? Well, to answer my own question, very awesome. 5 stars.

• Cannonry:

Easily 5 stars. If I could give it 6 or 7 stars I would, the cannonry is that abundant. Don’t Believe me? Just flip that movie box over and what do you see? That’s right, you see Arnold with a quadruple-rocket launcher ready to fire. That should tell you about all you need to know. It’s not all explosions either. There are many scenes at the end of the movie where Arnold stands in an out-in-the-open place and mows down about a million Latin Americans.

• Other Factors:

As far as other factors go, Arnold’s daughter’s name is Jenny. Jenny. Imagine Arnold yelling, “Jenn-nie!!!!” I think you get the picture. Hilarity ensues.

Also, there was a great scene in which Arnold throws a pipe through a dude’s chest and, somehow, steam comes shooting out of the end of the pipe facing the camera. How? Who knows, I’ve got to assume that that guy was made of steam, and that pipe just released it. Then Arnold makes some great pun about “letting off some steam” or something like that. All I can say is, High Quality.

This movie also gains by having a little unpredictability in the ending. When you start watching Arnold and Bennett fighting at the end, try to guess how Arnold is going to get him. Try it. I’ll bet you $20 you don’t get it right. It seems so obvious, but then they surprise you by not doing what you expect. Definitely more than I expected from Commando.

Overall Plot Line:
Umm, biggest question has got to be: where the hell does this movie take place? I know that the evil enemy boss guy mumbles it a couple of times, but I honestly had no idea what he was saying most of the time.

The main bad guy was great; I believe Bennett was his name. Man, that was the gayest biker-dude I’ve ever seen. And this movie was probably even made before the whole slave/biker-motif became popular, so I’m assuming that Bennett is solely responsible for the creation of this fad. Thank you Bennett.

If you don’t love these old Arnold movies, you just don’t love bad action movies. This is a classic example. The plot is fairly predictable, but they still throw in some things to surprise you. It even does alright for character development. It plays the basic human emotion card; Jenny is Arnold’s daughter so he wants to get her back, Bennett is basically just an evil dude that wants to kill Arnold. Basic, nothing fancy, but it involves you in the movie.

Other items this film contains:

-Arnold throwing a phone booth

-Arnold driving a truck with no engine (How the hell did they take the engine?!?)

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