Commando

Dom Robinson reviews

CommandoDistributed by

• Cert:
• Cat.no: 01484 DVD
• Running time: 85 minutes
• Year: 1985
• Pressing: 2001
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 24 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: 11 languages available
• Widescreen: 1.85:1
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 5
• Price: £17.99
• Extras: Trailer

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Director:

Mark L. Lester

(Commando, Firestarter, Showdown in Little Tokyo)

Producer:

Joel Silver

Screenplay:

Steven E. De Souza

Music:

James Horner

Cast:

Col. John Matrix: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Cindy: Rae Dawn Chong
Arius: Dan Hedaya
Bennett: Vernon Wells
Major Gen. Franklin Kirby: James Olson
Sully: David Patrick Kelly
Jenny Matrix: Alyssa Milano
Cooke: Bill Duke

If there’s a list of films that deserve a remix in Dolby Digital 5.1, Commandomust be among them, but it hasn’t been.

In this 80s classic Arnie actioner, the man plays Col. John Matrix, theretired head of a special Commando strike team, but as luck would have ithe still has a few enemies in the form of Arius (Dan Hedaya) andBennett (Vernon Wells) who begin the film by having his friends killedoff and step up to kidnapping by taking away his little daughter Jenny(Alyssa Milano, then a mere 12 years old before blossoming into thestunner of today in Melrose Place and Charmed).

While Stallone was out kicking butt in Vietnam inRambo: First Blood Part 2,Arnie was taking out the trash by hooking up with stewardess Cindy (Rae DawnChong), for which the back cover states she’s “feisty”, but is more likewimpy.

From the moment he gets a visit from his old Major General, Franklin Kirby(James Olson), trouble comes to his house. People fire at Arnie and miss,Arnie fires back and scores a direct hit. Throw in car chases and multipleexplosions whenever you like and the adrenaline would be pumping if it had asoundtrack to match it.

There’s also stacks of one-liners, beginning with a man who’s entered Arnie’shouse and sitting calmly in a chair explaining how his daughter’s beenkidnapped and that the only way to get her back is to co-operate. “Right?”,asks the cool customer. “Wrong.”, replies Arnie – gun in hand – andblows the guy’s brains out.

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Alyssa Milano, yesterday.

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The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and is anamorphic.It’s a reasonable transfer with no obvious artifacts, but it’s far fromoutstanding.The average bitrate is 6.21b/s, often peaking over 7Mb/s.

As for the sound, oh dear. I said it could use a Dolby Digital 5.1 remix, buteven a decent surround soundmix would be nice. What we’ve been given here isso quiet I had to turn my Sony STR-DB930 amp up to nearly halfway to get someenjoyment out of it and even the dialogue is slightly out of sync at times.

The only extra is a 2-minute 4:3 trailer that you’ll watch once.There are 24 chapters to the film which is fine and subtitles in 11 languages:English for the hard of hearing, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian,Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish. Menus are static andsilent.

As a standalone DVD, it’s not worth the full asking price and deserves moreof a budget pricing.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALLReview copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.

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