BACK COVER SYNOPSIS: In this early action classic that features his unique blend of thrills and offbeat humour, ARNOLD SCHWARZENNEGER stars as retired Colonel John Matrix. The ex-head of a special commando strike team, he’s forced back in to action when his daughter (Alyssa Milano) is kidnapped. With the help of a fiesty stewardess (Rae Dawn Chong), Matrix has only a few hours to overcome his greatest challenge: finding his daughter before she gets killed.

FILM REVIEW: In terms of pure entertainment value, “Commando” is an excellent example of 80’s escapist action fare which is as cheesy and B-grade as it gets. Although inherenty silly, particularly in hindsight, the film is still a lot fun, particularly with Schwarzenneger’s well known dreadful wit which is so bad that it’s good. Of course, you go to see an Arnie film for the action and to watch his biceps flex and this film does not disappoint in this regard. “Commando” is a fun action film from Arnie’s early career that is very dated but still fun.

Arnie plays an ex-commando John Matrix who is trying to live a simple life with his daughter, played by Alyssa Milano. When his old team becomes the target of an unseen group of assassins, his old boss comes out to find him and warn him of the impending danger. However, the assassins soon find Matrix and the action starts a plenty, especially when they kidnap his daughter in an attempt to force Matrix to go on one last mission. However, Matrix escapes from the plane the bad guys put him on to send him to his mission, leaving him eleven hours to find his daughter before the plane lands and the bad guys kill his daughter. In terms of plot, the film does not get any simpler than this and allows for Arnie to do what he does best; shoot guns, depose bad guys and deliver the bad puns. The puns are the best part; starting with Arnie’s trademark “I’ll be back” to such gems as “Do you remember when I told you I would kill you last? I lied.”

The action scenes are what makes this film worth watching and in many ways they do not disappoint, despite being overtly bloody, sometimes gory and hilariously outdated. 80’s violence in cinema was quite bloodthirsty, particularly with the amount of blood and bodies impaled on sharp objects. However, they are all thankfully unique in style and very simplistic. Some times the simple techniques work best.

“Commando” is so bad that it is good. Worth watching in retrospective if only to laugh at the bad puns and music, enjoy the action and watch Arnie in his prime.

TECHNICAL REVIEW: The video transfer of this film on DVD is at best average. The images are a little soft and suffer from strobing and aliasing in some of the darker sequences featuring motion. The audio transfer is also mediocre, without much work done to take full advantage of the surrounds, instead only relying on the original stereo soundtrack which sounds muffled most of the time. Overall, the transfer is average.

EXTRAS REVIEW: There is only a theatrical trailer and a selection of subtitles (Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, English for the Hearing Impaired) in this extras package so there is not much to review.

BOTTOM LINE: Rent it.