Commando

Arnold is a retired elite special forces commander, living in the boonies with his young daughter. An exiled dictator plans to kidnap his daughter and force him to assassinate the current president so he can return to power. In addition to his super-human whoop-ass antics, they feed Arnold some humor lines which fall completely flat do to his English skills and lack of comedic timing. Rae Dawn Chong is funny as a stewardess who he kidnaps, but ends up helping him. She stays dressed, but I can never resist her.

NUDITY REPORT

see the main commentary

The exposure comes from a scene where Arnold is fighting in a motel room, and breaks into the next room. THere is a couple there getting it on, and taping the event for posterity. The woman, played by Ava Cadell shows mostly breasts, as Arnold continues to fight. A then 13 year old Alyssa Milano plays the daughter. Maltin says two stars, and IMDB readers say 5.6/10. My expectations were not high, and I was entertained. Kick back, turn off your brain, and enjoy the spectacle. With some clever action sequences, a few intentional laughs, a lot of unintentional ones, and Rae Dawn looking cute, it is a watchable "bad movie."

DVD info from Amazon.

Widescreen letterboxed, 1.85:1
no meaningful features

Scoop's comments:

Arnold started his English acting career way back in the schoolyeards, when he and his chums put on a musical review of the lives of the great composers.

Since it took place in Austria, all the other kids wanted to be Mozart, but Arnold was always special, and to this day he's still known for his famous line:

"I'll be Bach"

The Critics Vote

Consensus: two stars. Maltin 2/4, BBC 3/5
Rotten Tomatoes summary. Twelve articles on file

The People Vote ...

With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 5.6

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C. Arnold formula picture before he mastered the formula.