Earlier this year I created a video essay about Arnold Schwarzenegger. While making it, I realised that Commando, Schwarzeneggers’ most excessive one-man-army film, was about to turn 40 – so I decided to rewatch it.
I found that the film’s mature age contrasts with its juvenile absurdity, which I absorbed all too easily when I first saw it, far too young, as a pre-teen. It was one of the few VHS tapes I had access to (thanks to an older sibling) and I watched it more than I should probably admit.
By the time The Matrix arrived in 1999, it took genuine effort for me to separate it from Schwarzenegger’s Commando character, John Matrix, the musclebound soldier saving his kidnapped daughter from terrorists, which was deeply etched in my brain. If that setup sounds familiar, you might also be thinking of Liam Neeson’s character in Taken (2008) – a film for which Commando is an obvious blueprint.
