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Commando Review

· superuser

Review Ratings

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Production Value: 
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
Content: 
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
Personal Enjoyment: 
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
Overall Popularity: 
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6
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final_score: 8.6

Final Review Score

8.6 / 10

Amazing

Commando (1985) is part of Louilink’s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie retrospective. This review considers its storytelling, performances, production, and lasting appeal.

Premise and Perspective

Commando stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as John Matrix, a retired special-forces colonel whose peaceful life with his daughter is shattered by a kidnapping. The demand that he carry out an assassination sets a ticking clock, but Matrix quickly abandons the plan and launches a one-man rescue mission. The story wastes little time on complexity. Instead, it builds a clean framework for escalating chases, improvised weapons, and confrontations in which the hero seems almost impossible to stop. That simplicity is both the movie's biggest limitation and its defining appeal.

Action and Momentum

Director Mark L. Lester keeps the film moving at a breathless pace. Shopping malls, city streets, and a heavily guarded island become stages for increasingly exaggerated destruction. The action is loud, direct, and gleefully implausible, with Schwarzenegger's size and confidence turning every obstacle into a temporary inconvenience. The film rarely pretends to be realistic, and its one-liners are designed to punctuate the spectacle. The finale in particular embraces the fantasy of an unstoppable action hero with little concern for restraint.

Performances and Tone

Schwarzenegger gives Matrix a surprisingly effective emotional motivation through his concern for his daughter, even if the film does not develop the family relationship in great detail. Rae Dawn Chong provides a useful counterpoint as Cindy, an unwilling participant who must adapt quickly to the chaos. The villains are colorful rather than psychologically complicated, allowing the movie to maintain a playful sense of rivalry. Its humor often comes from the mismatch between Matrix's impossible feats and his completely untroubled reaction to them.

The Final Verdict

Commando is not a subtle thriller, and viewers looking for grounded tactics or intricate plotting will find little of either. Its pleasures lie in speed, outrageous stunts, cartoonishly excessive combat, and Schwarzenegger's deadpan delivery. The movie is a compact showcase for the larger-than-life action formula of the 1980s, executed with enough confidence to become enduringly entertaining. It works best when approached as a knowingly over-the-top rescue adventure rather than a serious military drama.

Information

  • Title: Commando
  • Release Date: October 4, 1985
  • Director: Mark L. Lester
  • Key Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rae Dawn Chong, Dan Hedaya, Vernon Wells, Alyssa Milano
  • Genre: Action, Thriller