After proving his action credentials in James Cameron’s The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger then cemented his status as the genre’s biggest star with his next effort. Yes, Commando is one of the loudest, dumbest and cheesiest movies of the 1980s, which by default also happens to make it one of the most entertaining.
Everything from Arnie’s relentless one-liners to Vernon Wells’ Bennett wearing a chain mail vest for reasons that are never explained only enhances the enjoyment factor, while things come to a head in a preposterously overblown third act that features one of cinema’s finest tooling up montages, before the leading man wages war against an army of overzealous stuntmen and some hilariously obvious cardboard cutouts.
Commando was once set to get a sequel before Schwarzenegger’s packed schedule saw any discussions fall by the wayside, but insider Daniel Richtman is claiming that a reboot is now in in the works, which is encouraging to hear. After all, David Ayer was tasked to write the script for a new take on the property back in 2010, but it’s remained in development hell ever since and many assumed it would never happen. Meanwhile, Wells revealed earlier this year that a prequel has also been discussed as a possibility.
Even if the project is back on the table and in active development, though, the whole idea of rebooting Commando is completely unnecessary. There are hundreds upon hundreds of action films that involve one lone hero battling against insurmountable odds armed with only an industrial sized weapons cache and a handful of quips, and the reason it worked so spectacularly the first time around was the sheer ludicrousness of it all.
A new version would just be another formulaic run and gun adventure, and it isn’t like Commando boasted a compelling narrative packed with meaningful subtext that makes it a prime candidate for an overdue reinvention.
