Tuesday, March 1, 2011


A Review by Alan Trehern, Who Eats Green Berets for Breakfast

As the first Trehern-entry into the March Movie Madness ring, I thought I'd go with my bread and butter. Scratch that, every review by Trehern appearing here is gonna be my bread and butter, cause I am again taking on films I've never seen. Meaning I have NO IDEA how good or bad (probably bad) they're going to be: martial arts films, outdated science fiction adventure, all-around sh*tty movies and, of course, shoot-em-up action films starring juggernauts like Arnold Schwarzenegger! ON TO THE REVIEW!!!!

Commando (1985) (NOTE: It is unclear whether Matrix actually went "commando" during the course of this film.)
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alyssa Milano and Vernon Wells
Directed by Mark L. Lester

Now I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I had no idea what the f*ck was going on in this movie. What the hell? Did I miss Commando 1? What number sequel was this? How did the terrorists find Arnold in his Rocky Mountain home? Who ARE these people?!? There was total non-stop action, terribly delivered one-liners and neck breaking stunts to keep my attention for the entire run of the film, but I still could not get past the fact that these events made absolutely no sense.

"Allow me to clear your throat for you..."
Like I've mentioned in my pre-rant, the beginning, middle and end of this movie has a lot to be desired. Sure, we have bones breaking, bombs exploding and guns blazing, but this is clearly not a film for those seeking good storytelling or groundbreaking twists and turns. At the beginning of the film, Matrix (Schwarzenegger) lives up in the mountains with his daughter (Milano) and they enjoy a myriad of activities like buying French bagettes, swimming, bicycling and shot-putting all in the course of, say, 2 and a half hours. Just another day for the unemployed and their truant-dodging children.

An unnecessarily sweet moment between father and BOOM!!!!

"Milano Matrix" eventually gets kidnapped by a group of South Americans in an attempt to blackmail Matrix into assassinating their country's leader. The group of South Americans is led by one of Matrix's former teammates, Bennett (again, the history here is useless because we, the audience, has never seen the history). Bennett looks eerily familiar to Freddie Mercury, the front-man for Queen. Whenever he was on screen, I had him speaking like Mercury, so it was pretty comical.

The rest of the movie has Matrix hunting down this crew and trying to find his daughter. He gets 12 hours to do basically whatever he wants because the bad guys think he's on a plane. He finally finds their hideout (again, he really didn't struggle to get things done. Stuff just kind of...happened. Like the bulldozer through the department store and a secret cache of automatic weapons that apparently no one BUT Matrix knew about). Matrix is accompanied by a stewardess for most of the film, who delivers no credible lines of dialogue, serves absolutely no purpose, and could have been shot through the head in the first scene. Boom! Please sit back and enjoy tonight's in-flight movie: DEATH!!!

"I'm here to fix the tone-ah!"
Final Thoughts
I fell asleep multiple times during this movie. Sorry, Arnold. Good action, crappy story, terrible acting. I kept coming up with better one-liners than were in the movie. For instance, while Matrix fights a guy in a hotel room, the man claims he was a Green Beret. After impaling the man with a chair leg, he should have delivered, "Now it looks like you're a Red Beret..."

Because he was covered in blood...from the chair leg wound...

crumples up three pages of one-liners and tosses into trash**

My favorite pastime is watching terrible movies and then verbally bashing them. This film serves that purpose. Now don't get me wrong, it's entertaining if you're a mindless action-junkie like I am. But sometimes you want something a little more substantial to remind yourself that, yes, you can still think critically. Check out Commando if you're having an 18-hour Schwarzenegger-fest with your friends and family and significant others. Otherwise, avoid.

"Onward to the next review..."

1 comment:

Critical Ascot said...

Vernon Wells the All-Star Center Fielder formerly of the Toronto Blue Jays now of the Los Angeles Angels de Anaheim?!?

Great one liners in this review.