Summer of Arnold Post #5: The Action

Commando: I loved it when I was a kid, & it sort of holds up still. I say sort of because, while it is certainly junk, the pacing is good which keeps it moving along, plus we get Rae Dawn Chong. With The Terminator, the Arnold franchise learned they needed ridiculous one liners to help the films stick in our collective hearts & this went to the wall w/ them. Along w/ the one liners, we get Arnold jumping out of an airliner, carrying a tree over his shoulder, & killing people w/ circular saw blades. 3 1/2 out of 5 jiggly pecs

Raw Deal: The viewers get the real raw deal. It's like a bad Rockford Files rip-off, w/ a smaller budget. Not even Darren McGavin could save this clunker. This blows - 'nuf said. 1 out of 5 jiggly pecs

True Lies: Unlike Stallone, when Arnold teams up w/ James Cameron the results are fantastic... & this is 1 of those team-ups. Like the old Brave & the Bold comics (& sort of like the new cartoon) the viewer always/already knows the pairing will work. Jamie Lee Curtis is great. Even Tom Arnold is good. I'd never seen this before, but I'll definitely give it another go when it's on TV & I happen upon it. 4 out of 5 jiggly pecs

Eraser: Like Raw Deal, this involves mafia. Unlike Raw Deal, this 1 basically works. Arnold plays an agent who fakes the death of high-profile witnesses, but then gets involved in 1 of the cases a little to deeply, @ which point he teams up w/ dock workers/union guys/mafia thugs to fight terrorist/gun runners. As in Commando, he falls from an airplane, but to even better effect. 3 1/2 out of 5 jiggly pecs

Collateral Damage: Like Predator, he goes to Latin America to fight bad guys. He's a fire-fighter fighting terrorists after 9-11 which says a lot about the movie, but it's better than it sounds. It's another film which shows the US Military as just as shady & murderous as the "bad guys." There isn't the flag waving that I expected, & we see another instance of Arnold's schizophrenic politics. 3 out of 5 jiggly pecs.