Reaction & Review | Commando

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an action film from 1985. That movie is "Commando".

Now, I'm gonna tell you guys everything that I know about this movie right here. Number one, I know that it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger. And two, I've heard that this movie is essentially just a plotless action flick. And as some of you probably already know, I'm not really the biggest fan of plotless action films. There are certain exceptions to this, such as a good chunk of the "Triple B" movies from Andy Sidaris and the Rambo movies. So while I will admit to kinda softening up on plotless action flicks, that doesn't mean that I'm entirely a fan of them either.

So now that begs a question. Why am I reviewing this movie if I already know that it's probably a plotless action film? Well, there's two reasons. One, I found a copy of this thing real cheap at one of my local video stores for about $3, so I decided why not. And two, I've always wanted to cover more films involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, so this movie could be a decent effort from him.

I don't know if this film is going to be any good or not, guys. I've heard some mixed things about this movie. Some people admit to enjoying it as a mindless popcorn flick while others admit that the film is a piece of shit. I don't know where this is going to sit with me. Now this film may be plotless, but it could still also be very entertaining in it's own unique way. The only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Commando".

4 minutes later

So, guys, allow me to summarize everything that has happened within the last few minutes. A couple of guys disguised as garbagemen ended up killing some guy who was trying to take down his trash. Then a black guy in a suit ends up driving a stolen car out of a dealership and ends up killing the salesman. And then the same guy also blows up a fucking boat because...reasons, I guess. And none of these scenes had *any* context to it. Now I'm certainly hoping that we'll get some of that later on. But as of right now, I'm just left kinda confused, really.

11 minutes later

So, John, upon discovering that his car's wires have been screwed up, pushed his vehicle down a hill, that is filled with trees mind you, and is gonna drive it without any brakes on. There's no way in hell this is gonna work out for him! And if it *does* work, then I'll be shocked as all hell.

1 minute later

Well, I called it, guys. It didn't fucking work out for him. Also, that entire chase sequence was terribly edited as well. But I'll talk about that later when I get to reviewing this film.

7 minutes later

OK, as creative as that kill was by John, doesn't he realize that he's already endangering his daughter's life? Because he was told earlier by Bennett that if he doesn't hear from either of his henchmen, he's going to kill John's daughter. I'm sure John's already fucked himself right there, but I'm still curious to see how exactly he's going to get out of that little complication, assuming that he hasn't screwed up already. Which I still think he has, but what do I know?

7 minutes later

So let me see if I understand this. One of Bennett's men was stalking and harassing this lady before finally giving up. John sneaks up from behind her, tells her to get in the car, and also takes out the passenger seat next to her because, I guess, his build was too big for her car to properly hide in. And then he also tells her to to follow the guy who was harassing her. And I probably wouldn't be commenting on all this if not for the fact that John is sitting perfectly next to her in her car despite the fact that he's suppose to be in hiding! Then what the fuck was the reason for him to pull out the passenger's seat if he's not going to hide?! Guys, I understand that this thing is suppose to be a stupid action flick, and it totally is, but this thing is becoming stupider with every inane action that John pulls out of his ass! Just thought I'd mention that in case I didn't make it clear already.

7 minutes later

So hold on a fucking second here. So just few minutes ago, the lady that John "kidnapped" was trying to rat out John to security after he tried to coerce her to help him get his daughter back. All hell breaks loose between the guy John's after and the security that are after John and she ends up pushing one of the security officers down the escalator stairs after he tries to shoot John. Lady, pick a fucking side and stick with it! Jesus Christ...!

11 minutes later

So John's gonna leave the body of one of Bennett's henchmen that he just killed in the motel room that Sully was originally staying at. Even though there was witnesses who saw whole thing, unintentionally mind you, and leaving a ton of fucking of evidence for someone like the police to find and possibly pick up his trail. Guys, this entire movie is getting stupider with each passing scene and the more that I continue to question it, the more I'm probably just gonna have to accept for what it is, because this movie seems to be immune to logic.

6 minutes later

Are you fucking serious?! So John just drove a fucking bulldozer into an army clothing store! Where he got the bulldozer I don't fucking know! And instead of just breaking into the store in a less subtle way, he decides to use a fucking bulldozer. Sure...why not? It makes about as much sense as this movie has made so far, which is not a lot, really.

2 minutes later

Holy shit, this movie is actually attempting to use some bit of logic! So the police have finally gotten involved and arrested John. Not so much Cindy, as I think she's in hiding. But hey, I'm actually really shocked that this movie is attempting to use some bit of logic and common sense. So, at least this movie has some kind of realism to it, I guess.

10 minutes later

OK, why the hell is John in his fucking speedo? He's literally wearing nothing else other than that. I mean, I know that Arnold was a former bodybuilder, so it kinda makes sense in that context. But why the hell he's paddling to the island in nothing but his speedo makes no sense to me whatsoever. And yet strangely enough, that's probably the least questionable thing he has done this entire movie...so far anyway.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Commando". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Good god, where do I start here...?

I should actually clarify something first, just in case somebody might be reading this and will get the wrong impression about it. I don't hate this movie. I really don't. I think it's stupid as shit, probably one of the dumbest action films I have seen in years, but I don't hate it. I don't hate dumb action films as long as they're entertaining. And there is bounds of entertainment to be had here. However, it also reinforces my point as to why I'm not exactly a fan of these particular action films. I usually like some semblance of substance in my action movies. An example would be the first two Rambo movies, because they actually have something resembling a plot and interesting characters. Now I can usually let that slide for certain movies like Andy Sidaris's "Triple B" movies, because Sidaris made them with a certain mindset of having women showing their tits on camera and also having a lot of over-the-top action scenes. This movie certainly has the latter going for it, although it doesn't really have women showing their tits, aside from one scene that I kinda hinted at earlier when John was fighting the black guy in the motel room. Other than that, this movie operates on being a mindless, dumb action film. And I do believe the filmmakers realized that, too.

So, let's try and talk more about the movie itself here. I'm gonna start with writing, which there's really not much of to begin with. This movie is exactly what I thought was going to be like, in case you didn't get what I already said about it. The only thing we have for a plot is that John's daughter, Jenny, gets kidnapped and he's forced to work with the bad guys in order to kill the President of some other country. Which one? It doesn't really matter, because it means absolutely nothing in the long run. So on the way, John is forced on a flight with one of the henchmen of our villain, Bennett, who is also a former army combatant of John's. In fact, I should probably at least spoil this much, in case you really care, those guys who I mentioned earlier who were killed with no context to it. Those guys were actually all of John's former war buddies and they were all killed as revenge for possibly what happened in the war. I'm not totally sure if that's accurate, but then again, it also really doesn't matter in the long run.

So anyway, going back to what I was saying about our thin plot. John ends up on the flight and just before it takes off, John secretly kills the guy in a somewhat creative way and he ends up sneaking his way out of the plane from below to where the wheels are at. And no, I'm not making that up, that actually happens and John gets away. And then, in one of the few bits of logic that this movie tries to bring up, I asked earlier if by killing that guy already fucked John's chances of rescuing his daughter. Because, again, if they didn't hear back from the guy that was traveling with John, his daughter would be killed. Well, before the flight took off, John asked one of the flight attendants on how long the flight was going to be, and she says it would be about 11 hours. So, John, after he secretly gets off the plane and watches it take off, he sets his watch to 11 hours exactly, meaning that it gives him enough time to try and find a way to rescue his daughter. How he gets to all that is another thing altogether.

I'm gonna go straight into characters here, because there really isn't much here for character depth to begin with. Arnold's character, John Matrix, is essentially a former army man living with his daughter in the mountains. And he actually seems at peace whenever he's with his daughter. But when she gets kidnapped, he mostly has just one expression on his face, which is putting on a blank face throughout most of the movie, much like how he was when he was in "The Terminator". Although at least for that film, it made sense. And he also apparently pulls off a lot of cheesy one liners and puns that makes this action movie a lot more cheesier than what it already is. Yeah, I should mention this movie has a lot of those, which admittedly, adds a little bit of charm to an already cheesy movie.

Our villains here are all forgettable and non-threatening. Especially all the soldiers that John guns down in the last third of the movie, to a point where it almost gets ridiculously cartoonish, especially when he cuts down a couple of body parts from some of the soldiers. Our main villain, Bennett, has no personality to him other than that he has a score to settle against John, and he himself acts stupid and cartoonish towards the end in the final fight against John. So yeah, our villains are plainly one dimensional. Cindy, the girl that is with John in this movie, has no reason to be here, since she was obviously forced into John's crusade to get his daughter back. I mean, she could've just stuck to her guns and let the security at the mall take care of John. Not that it matters anyways, since John is apparently so fucking strong that he eats security guards for breakfast. But still, Cindy could've done that and just quietly left. And then for no reason, she stops a security guard from shooting John and pushes him down the stairs. By the way, I should correct myself from earlier when I said that she pushed a security guard down the stairs, I said that they were escalator stairs, when in actuality, they were just normal stairs. So, my mistake there.

But going back to Cindy for just a second more here, like I said, she really has no reason to be in this movie. She was just forced into it and is mostly along for the ride. But I will give her a little bit of credit in which she does try to at least be useful in some aspects. Such as when she and John broke into a warehouse and she was able to decode some things in regards to an airplane that our villains had occupied somewhere. And she can somehow operate a rocket launcher. Poorly at first, but she eventually gets it right. I won't spoil exactly how that all works, it just kinda does, I guess. But aside from that, her character is kind of annoying and doesn't really add much of anything else. She's just...there, really. Forced into it, probably because the filmmakers didn't think Arnold Schwarzenegger could handle the leading role all by himself. Though honestly, he really could've in this movie, at least. But that's just me.

So yeah, writing here is stupid as hell. Which, for an action movie such as this, it's honestly fine. Although if you attempt to try and think about the issues like I tried to, then you're probably gonna end up hating it. However, all of my issues with the movie are mostly minor, especially since this is a cheesy 80's action flick that doesn't operate on logic or common sense. Well, most of the time anyway. But yeah, guys, writing in this movie is pretty much what you would come to expect from a plotless cheesy 80's action film.

Acting here is kind of a mixed bag. Arnold's delivery is dry, though I think that's mostly intentional considering the limited acting that he's able to do. But I will say that at least he kinda makes it work, especially when he's delivering his cheesy one liners. So it's not like his character is completely stoic or anything. The actress playing Cindy actually does an OK job, too. Even though her character didn't really serve much of a purpose, I will say that at least she turned in the best performance that she could. It's not great, but it's still definitely decent. The one actor who turns in the most hamfisted performance has to go to Vernon Welles as Bennett. Now outside of him acting stupidly cartoonish in his final fight against Arnold, I don't know what kind of accent he's suppose to be supporting. I can't tell if it's straight up British, Australian, or Russian. Part of me wants to think it's the latter, but I can't really tell because his accent is almost unrecognizable. Aside from that, though, everyone else turns in a halfway decent showing, so at least that's something.

Special effects are mostly regulated to stuff such as pyrotechnics and some blood effects. The former is something that you see a lot of in the third act, while the latter is something that you surprisingly don't see much of, outside of a couple of body parts being cut off. Costuming here is decent, although with Bennett, his outfit makes him look like Mr. Slave from "South Park". You know, the one who was around Big Gay Al in the early seasons of the show? Yeah, that one. For some reason, Bennett looks like him, although considering this came out long before "South Park", I'm going to assume Matt or Trey Parker saw this movie and took inspiration from that character. I could be totally wrong about that, but I don't really care. Point is, Bennett's costume looks like shit, and it makes him look even less threatening, which I didn't think was actually possible, but this movie found a way to do that.

Let's talk about editing next. Because the editing in this movie is shit. The biggest example is something that I hinted at earlier when I was talking about the car chase, in which Arnold pushed his own vehicle down a hill and jumped inside it to control the driving. Well, there was something about the editing during that scene that caught my attention. Mainly, it's the fact that they recycled the same footage twice! I'm serious, guys, this movie delves into the cheapness factor by recycling footage as if the scene was going on for longer. Guys, I've seen plenty of action movies, both in this series and on my own time, but this is the first time I've *ever* seen an action movie recycle the same footage for their action scenes. I don't know any other action movie that has ever done this sort of thing before, and if they did, well then they must've hidden it pretty well, because this movie doesn't hide it's editing flubs very well. Granted, I understand that a scene like that would probably be difficult to get on camera, but I've seen it done before. Case in point would be the 007 film known as "For Your Eyes Only". It had a very similar scene like this one, but they never used recycled footage. It flowed naturally and it didn't feel like it was aiming to be cheap. This movie decided to be cheap with it's editing, and, man, does it ever show it's laziness.

Now, setting aside the shitty editing, camerawork here is fine for what it is. The lighting here is also lit perfectly fine. Sound-mixing here is decent. The score here is OK, but since it's coming from James Horner, who has done better in other films before and after this, this is kind of underwhelming. Most of it is just similar-sounding synth music and it doesn't even sound great either. It's just kinda disappointing, really.

So ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Commando"? If you're a fan of cheesy, plotless action films, then yes, I would totally say go and check it out. If you're somebody who goes into it with your brain shut off and you view it as a mindless popcorn flick, then yes, I can also recommend it on that end as well. But if you're looking for an action film that has more substance, then this film is not going to be for you. Now let me reiterate this point again: I don't hate this movie. Far from it. I've seen far worse action movies coming from action stars such as Chuck Norris, and that's mostly because Chuck Norris can't fucking act. Now it's possible that if I end up watching this movie again at some point, I may have to do it with my brain shut off, because that really is the only way I would possibly really enjoy it. But as I stated before, I'm not a fan of these particular action movies, with a few exceptions here and there. I may possibly give this movie a second chance on my own time, but it's probably not going to happen anytime soon. So with that said, I'm gonna go and watch one of my Rambo movies, since this movie kinda motivated me to do so after watching that third act. So yeah, I'm gonna go watch one of those right now. I don't know which one yet, but I'll decide that when I get to it.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.