Still Kicking Ass Two Decades Later
Enter Commando, the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick that featured Schwarzenegger as a badass one-man army with a soft heart. Schwarzenegger plays John Matrix, a retired colonel in a special operations force, Schwarzenegger tries to live a quiet peaceful life on a secluded mountain with his young daughter, but now that wouldn’t be very interesting would it? So his former commander flies in to inform him that his former comrades in his group are being killed, and he could be next. Matrix is forced to take arms when his home is suddenly overrun by a bunch of gun-toting militant thugs. They capture his daughter and look to have made a clean getaway; to get her back, he’s going to have to cooperate, right? Right? Wrong . If you didn’t get that last line, it’s just another reason to see the movie—plenty of catchy, ok cheesy in most cases, one liners.
The film is essentially a non-stop action flick with a faint romance story between Matrix and a young flight attendant who gets pulled into this rescue operation. The nice thing about how they did the romance story was that it wasn’t a big part of the movie at all; the action is the first and only important priority of this film, and it’s done is that great, over-the-top and in your face type of way. This is perhaps best exemplified in the final assault where Matrix storms an island base of bad guys and proceeds to take them all out by himself.
To Blu-ray
Commando on Blu-ray actually looks pretty darn good. I was impressed with it; having read a couple of other reviews, that weren’t so hot on the visuals, I was pleasantly surprised throughout. Admittedly, there is a grainy look to most of the film, similar to Predator on Blu-ray which I am also reviewing. However, colors, textures, and overall clarity are markedly improved from any previous version that I have seen.
What’s sorely lacking in this release are extras. There’s nothing but a handful of useless trailers and, just as useless, “D-Box Motion Control.” I have heard of this D-Box technology, but I’m willing to bet there are exceedingly few adopters, myself included. It’s a shame that Fox couldn’t at least throw on the same extras that the Director’s Cut had.
Final Thoughts
Commando is one of the best action films ever made, and certainly one of the best of its time. It was released during a time which was really the start of the heyday of awesome action films that featured, and paved the way for, the likes of Van Damme and Segal, Stallone and Norris. Yes this film is filled with over-the-top action and lots of unrealistic feats by Arnold, but it’s fun, and very entertaining; it’s a film I’ve seen a dozen times and I still enjoy. That said, this Blu-ray release is exactly what I was hoping it wouldn’t be — a lazy release with zero extras, although the presentation is indeed noticeable improved. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we saw a “Commando Director’s Cut” Blu-ray Edition in a year or two. Given the price, and the fact that the Director’s Cut DVD is so cheap and features so much more — it’s hard to recommend this release to anyone but the most hardcore fan — which, for better or worse, I happen to be.
Overall – 6.5 – Average