Since the early ‘80s, the two had a hammerlock on the big-budget action genre. But first, it’s worth pointing out that back in 1985, the friendly box-office rivalry between Schwarzenegger and his comrade in cinematic sadism, Sylvester Stallone, was at its alpha-male pinnacle. We’ll get to what makes Commando such an insane slice of Neanderthal nostalgia in a moment. If you were into that sort of thing back in 1985 (and 15-year-old me most definitely was), then Commando has to get your vote as the most self-aware and homoerotic kill-fest of the Reagan era-an era, by the way, that had no shortage of such things. And it’s also a pure shot of straight-no-chaser Ahnuld that somehow manages to both fetishize his ham-sized pecs and ubermensch physique in every frame while turning squib-happy ultraviolence into something so giddily excessive that it unspools like a live-action Tex Avery cartoon (for the record: Scxhwarzenegger scores 81 kills). It’s a deliriously over-the-top slice of Joel Silver-produced macho kitsch that has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. But it’s certainly his most ‘80s action movie of the ‘80s. Released on this day 35 years ago, 1985’s Commando may not be the Austrian Oak’s greatest action movie of the ‘80s. Still, there’s one film from that period that tends to get overlooked far too often. That’s a pretty amazing run of red-meat spectacles right there. Olympia-turned-unlikely-Hollywood heavyweight cranked out Conan the Barbarian, The Terminator, Predator, The Running Man, Total Recall, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In the decade between 19, the seven-time Mr. Back in the fall of 1985, it was impossible to be bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger, both in terms of movie-star wattage and sheer Joe Weider muscle mass.
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