Misunderstood Masterpieces: Commando
Posted by Will Helm on 03.09.2003
or, Neo, I'm Here to Tell You About John Matrix.
Greetings, salutations and welcome to the first edition of…Misunderstood Masterpieces!!! (Cue triumphant music.) Who am I and what am I doing here? I’m an over-educated 25-year-old with a little too much time on his hands and a penchant for picking apart movies…which is exactly what I’ll be doing in this very column. Isn’t that a wonderful coincidence? I believe that while some films are ill-conceived, some are terribly made, some have plot holes and logic gaps wide enough to drive an 18-wheeler through, and some are just incomprehensible, but most still have entertainment value…especially after you tear them apart and see what’s really going on. Come, join me while I perform this service for your amusement…you’ll never look at a movie the same way again.
________________________________________________
You know something, I don't find all of Arnold Schwartzenegger's movies to be terrible. Both Terminator movies were really well done pieces of science fiction (and I generally don’t like science fiction). Predator was also an interesting little piece of movie making: a villain that you can't see is a great concept. Personally, The Running Man is my favorite, a nifty and funny futuristic satire...plus, the star-power that is Dick ("Family Feud") Dawson. Unfortunately, Commando has no saving graces. This movie is bad, BAD, BAD! And, of course, that's why I’m here to tell you about it.
Our film opens with some guys getting killed for absolutely no reason...but we'll find out why. We ALWAYS find out why. And, sadly, usually it means more killing. Cut to a serene cabin in an undisclosed mountain range, owned by one John Matrix (Ah-nold). Yes, it would seem his last name is "Matrix." How do you get a cool last name like that? Well, it's only cool if your first name is John, or James, or Clint, but not so for Mr. Matrix's daughter, Jenny (Alyssa Milano, in a pre-pubescent/pre-implantation stage). Her name...hahahahahaha...is...hahahahahaha...Jenny Matrix. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Ahem. OK.
So John and Jenny enjoy life working out, making sandwiches, feeding deer, and chopping wood. Their idyllic scene is interrupted by the sound of helicopters...it's John's former Special Forces unit commander! Other members of John's unit are being murdered! (Oh...so that's the guys who were killed in the beginning! it all makes sense!) John is presumably the next target, so the commander leaves two guards behind (who are of course totally inept cannon-fodder). Lo and behold, about five minutes after the general-guy leaves, here come the bad guys! The guards are down. Jenny hides upstairs under a bed. John goes to his tool shed and opens up his secret weapons arsenal. Wha? All I have in my tool shed is a lawn mower. Of course it does have a nuclear warhead on it...but that's beside the point.
John kicks some bad guy a**, but Jenny gets kidnapped anyway. Now that's parenting! John spots the getaway car driving...away. The battery wires in his pickup have been cut, however, so he does whatever any sane person would do in this situation: pushes the truck to build up momentum and then jumps into a speeding truck going down a mountain with no brakes! Of course, it's just a guess that the brakes are out, because, even though the battery wires have been cut, the brake lights still come on. Oooops. Anyway, John goes hurtling down the hill, barely missing the car...twice. Damn, that's one twisty road! He gets captured, though.
And now here come the evil leaders: some Latino dictator-guy named Arius (Dan Hedeya) and Bennett (that big Australian dude who always plays bad guys, Vernon Wells). They take Jenny hostage and send John on a plane to somewhere. John kills his lone guard before the plane even gets off the ground and then escapes to the cargo hold of the plane. He then climbs into the wheel-well of the landing gear and jumps a couple hundred feet off of a moving plane into a swamp...and emerges perfectly unharmed! Oh, and of course he's out for vengeance. Whoopee...more vengeance. Why can't these people just go out for pizza, or out for a beer instead?
His first stop on his quest for vengeance: the airport. He finds one of the accomplices, Sully (David Patrick Kelly), hitting on stewardess Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong). A chase ensues, with the trio ending up in a mall. John beats up a couple hundred rent-a-cops, but Sully escapes. Another chase ensues, with John commandeering Cindy’s '50s vintage Corvette convertible. He tears out a front seat to make himself more comfortable (not like our fine Austrian cars!) and hauls a** on the trail of Sully. Sully realizes that he's been chased and, in a moment of panic, wrecks his car. Now John has to stop the Corvette. Simple application of the brake pedal would help in this situation, but John simply decides to plow straight into a telephone pole, while doing 80, with no seatbelt on. He emerges (big shock) perfectly unharmed! His superpowers must be contagious, because Cindy is unhurt as well. John interrogates Sully...while holding him by his ankle over the edge of a cliff. John gets the information and then betrays Sully by dropping him. Are good guys supposed to do things like that? I guess they are when they’re out for vengeance. Sully is so shocked by the betrayal that he immediately turns into a pathetically screaming rag doll while falling to his death. No, really.
John and Cindy end up at a sleazy motel where another accomplice finds them. John quickly fights with him and impales him on something. We don't quite see what it is, we don't quite know how it got there, but it killed him right good. Our two "heroes" then go down to the docks, where they discover just where Jenny is being held! Unfortunately, it's on an island. Fortunately, it's not that far. Unfortunately, they need a plane to get there. Fortunately, Cindy is not only a stewardess, but also a pilot skilled enough to take the helm of single-engine aircraft! This John Matrix guy is so damned lucky. Not only that, there's a budding romance between him and Cindy. Awwwww...how nice.
Cut to the obligatory "Arnold-gets-dressed" sequence. He's locked and loaded and ready to go...and, luckily, they've just then reached the island fortress of...Dan Hedeya. Oooooooh...so scary. Then again, he did play Nixon. John sneaks into the compound and then kills about 1,000 or so henchmen, and then blows up Dan Hedeya. Well, not Dan Hedeya...his character, Arius. At least I think he blew up; I don't quite remember. Anyway, Jenny has escaped from her finely appointed room and is in the bowels of the compound, where John finds her. Of course, he also finds...BENNETT! Ooooh...it's time for the fight to the death! And guess who gets it? It is pretty inventive, though; John could have thrown Bennett into a furnace or electrocuted him. Instead, our Aussie friend Bennett is impaled by a pipe and stuck to a hot water heater. Or something like that. Insert patented "witty Arnold one-liner" here. Of course, he's perfectly unharmed.
As always, the cavalry is one minute too late and John gets a good laugh as he FINALLY gives up his Special Forces commission. Good...now he can't legally kill anyone anymore. Until his next movie. He flies off into the sunset with Jenny and Cindy. Ahhhhh...feel the romance! Cue up "We Fight for Love" a.k.a. "Love Theme from Commando" by some crappy '80s band and take us home credits! Please!
After viewing this movie, I am heartily convinced that they never told Ah-nold that they stopped making the Terminator movies. John Matrix is, without question, an unstoppable machine, much like his T-800 counterpart. He jumps out of airplanes, he smashes into telephone poles, he miraculously impales henchmen, he kills more henchmen, he holds Sully over a cliff, he blows up Dan Hedeya, etc. etc. etc. All this, while remaining PERFECTLY UNHARMED! At least T-800's skin could come off; that was cool. At this point I believe that Arnold Schwartzenegger is a cyborg, sent to America from Austria with only one purpose: make movies where the lead character is superhuman, no matter what. Even when his name is John Matrix.
