The Return of Arnold

Regardless of whether you feel that Arnold Schwarzenegger was suited to be Governor of California, and the bad taste that might have left in peoples' mouths, it's hard not to have some affection toward the guy. You can't rightly think of action movies, especially from the '80's, without him coming foremost to mind.

The movies weren't all good. In fact, most were really not that great. But it was a time and a place in history, and a lot of people loved his movies. He was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood at the height of his acting career. If not the highest paid actor.

It's a general rule, however, that what goes up, must come down. Audiences loved Arnold in Conan the Barbarian, Commando, Raw Deal, The Running Man, Red Heat, Total Recall, and especially the Terminator movies, but that they cooled off as the 90's got into swing. By the time the kid-friendly, PG-13 Rated Last Action Hero was released, audience's interests were mostly elsewhere.

Arnold did some more features, but the writing was on the wall. He was no longer the world's leading action hero.

Now we have The Last Stand, which I just saw this afternoon. The Last Stand is like Snakes on a Plane, in a way. One of those critic proof movies. Cliched, predictable, implausible, and outright stupid? Of course! That was the intention. The Last Stand hails back to what now seem like simpler, more innocent days, when moviegoers cheered to Raw Deal and Commando.

Arnold plays an ex-Las Vegas Detective who, weary of the excessive violence of big city police work, gets a job as Sheriff in a sleepy Arizona town. As fate would have it, a drug kingpin escapes the FBI and, in his supercharged automobile, must get through Arnold's town to get across the border.

All the expected ingredients are present: Comic relief, wisecracks, lapses in logic, comic book villains, and the good old Gung Ho, Reagan era, Rambocentric American spirit that we seem to have lost.

I'm sure that in the wake of the Sandy Hook atrocity, a movie with such gunplay and bloody violence seems wildly inappropriate to some. I can dig that stance, but a good old fashioned good guys and bad guys shoot-em-up was just what I needed to soothe my anxiety-ridden blues. The Last Stand certainly isn't a great movie, nor was it intended to be. But it is fun, and unlike Stallone's Expendables movies, this really does feel like an updated 80's actioner.

Arnold has more movies in the works. Some action movies, naturally. He has shown a reasonable flair for comedy in the past, and a sequel to his hit comedy, Twins, is in the planning stages. In Twins, Arnold and Danny DeVito discover that they are unlikely twins. The sequel, Triplets, will introduce Eddie Murphy into the mix. Talk about your high concept. Heck, I'll probably see it.