hamachi@KIM (Gordon Hamachi) (10/16/85)
Micro review: Better than Rambo, but that's not saying much. If Rambo is America's violent revenge fantasy against the Vietnamese, then Commando is America's violent revenge fantasy against terrorists. Co-rambo, as it is sometimes called, is an apalling, sickening romp 'em, stomp 'em through an army of bad guys. Some sleaze balls kidnap the hero's young daughter to force him to assassinate the president of the South American country of Val Verde. Watch out! It's party time. Here comes the punch! Violence takes many forms. I happen to dislike close-ups of stabbings, impalings, and machine gun bullets stitching across people's chests. How about guys getting their heads cut off by circular saw blades? Some of the other stuff isn't too bad, like when Arnold throws a grenade and soldiers do very stylized forward rolls in the air. People die left and right. In the first few minutes we see a number of people killed as they are gunned down by garbage men (excuse me, sanitation workers), immolated at the touch of a button, and run over by auto thieves. What's the point? Uh, I think it is to establish that these are BAD GUYS, and that there's good violence versus bad violence. Okay, but it isn't very artfully done. Remember when, in the Terminator Arnold punches his arm through a car window, or when he runs over a child's toy in the street? Far from artful, there is nothing subtle about Commando. There's a surprising amount of humor early in the movie, before the slaughter begins in earnest. Arnold says, "I'll be back" just as he does in The Terminator (which, by the way, I liked a lot). We see him striding through the forest with chainsaw in one hand and a giant log slung casually over the shoulder. Rae Dawn Chong has a disappointingly weak part, although everyone but Arnold ends up with a weak part. Bennett, the good guy gone bad, looks like a refugee from a leather bar, obviously not in the same class as Mr. Clean Cut All American (excuse me, East German). The guy Arnold follows from the airport is a short sleaze who ogles women and then calls them whores when they don't get aroused by such foreplay. But back to Rae Dwan Chong. After Arnold's kid is kidnapped, Arnold kidnaps this innocent bystander, wrecks her car, gets her shot at, and finally, like Patty Hearst (we still remember her here at Berkeley) enlists her in The Cause. And listen to her screech. Plausible? Ultimately, Commando is the script writer's, producer's, and director's violent revenge <<reality>> against the movie going public. It made me feel sick, and I'm sorry I went to see it.
terryl@tekcrl.UUCP () (10/17/85)
> Micro review: Better than Rambo, but that's not saying much. > ........ > ........ I have to agree totally with this review, but I must mention another point about how bad this movie is, and that's the continuity (or more exactly, the lack of it). I don't know if it was intentional or not, but there are at least 5 major continuity errors, 2 of which were so obvious that the crowd I was in was literally yelling at the screen "Wait a minute!!! What about....??" Major error number one happens when our hero John Matrix (good ol` Arnie Whats-His-Name) is chasing major scumbag through the hills above LA. Major scumbag is driving a Porsche (924, if memory serves correctly, but probably not). John is driving a mini sports-car/convertible he stole from Rae Dawn Chong's character. Standard scene with both cars trying to run each other off the road. John manages to run the Porsche into a small embankment and Porsche overturns on its left side. John pulls major scumbag out of Porsche and drops him over a cliff. John then overturns Porsche, and we can clearly see the left side is all banged up, dented, paint scratched, etc. But as John and Rae Dawn are leaving the scene, the left side is all brand- spankin' new and shiny!!! In the next scene, when John and Rae Dawn pull into a motel, the left side has mysteriously changed back to its damaged state. Major error number two happens when John and Rae Dawn are in an amphi- bian plane in a secluded cove near an island off the coast of Santa Barbara. John is getting into a life raft, and it can be clearly seen he has on a BLACK Speedo swim suit. Scene cuts to John rowing to shore, and then scene cuts to long shot from jungle on island as life raft lands on the beach. The person getting out of the life raft has on a LIGHT COLORED Speedo swim suit!!! Boy, the audience was really screaming at this one!!! There are other errors, but these were so blatant EVERYONE in the audience picked up on them right away. All in all, a VERY BAD film. I'd definitely stay away from this one (and wished I had!!!)
hhs@hou2h.UUCP (H.SHARP) (10/22/85)
My favorite discontinuity in the film was the scene where Arnold was surveying the island through his binoculars. The camera shot through the binoculars is moving left to right, but when they switch to a shot of Arnold, he is moving his head right to left. Pretty tricky.