leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (10/24/85)
COMMANDO
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Childish but enjoyable action
adventure. COMMANDO is heavy on violence and light on
credibility.
Last year's he Terminator proved that there is big boxoffice to see
Arnold Schwarznegger as an implacable juggernaut, killing any and everything
in his path. In that film he was a flesh-covered robot and he killed
literally dozens of people in the course of the film. In COMMANDO he is
human, and a hero, so he kills what must be more than 150 people. He in
fact single-handedly kills an entire army, one or two at a time, without
ever sustaining more than minor injuries.
John Matrix (no relation to Martin Gardner's Dr. Matrix) is an ex-
commando whose destructive skills lie somewhere between Rambo's and
Godzilla's. He has retired before the start of the film and is living in
the hills hugging his daughter and carrying around trees. Unfortunately,
some nasties kidnap the daughter and take all the fun out of tree-carrying.
It seems they want Matrix to assassinate a South American president. Matrix
swears that when the task is complete he will kill the nasties. He skips
the assassination and goes immediately into the killing phase.
The basic story of COMMANDO is not really too bad. Admittedly there
were fewer details to get wrong, but while THE TERMINATOR had several
obviously erroneous touches, COMMANDO had fewer to get wrong. There are two
major problems that THE TERMINATOR did not have. Matrix picks up a wise-
cracking confederate along the way (Rae Dawn Chong from QUEST FOR FIRE), but
their wise-cracking always seems forced and unbelievable. But the real
unbelievability comes in the way the fights are choreographed. Some of the
stunts require split-second timing and a lot of coincidence for one man to
do what Matrix does, particularly in one scene involving an elevator. No
matter how many soldiers come at Matrix with machine guns blazing, our man
is never hit. Nobody can ever sneak up on him, even is he is involved
defending himself from attackers from other directions. One spray of his
never-empty machine gun will kill every one of his two dozen attackers, yet
not one will manage to wound Matrix. Matrix is just too super a hero and
the script is too obviously aimed at a junior high audience. But for fun
(albeit mindless) action, it isn't bad. Rate it 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper