You can’t call yourself an action fan and not love Arnold Schwarzenegger. From his humble beginnings in Austria, he discovered bodybuilding and first made a name for himself as one of the best in the business. He would then come to America where he would eventually become the greatest action star of all time.
Commando, Predator, Terminator, The Running Man, Total Recall, so many classic movies. Sure he had wooden delivery but you don’t watch his movies cos you want to watch Oscar fare; you wanna see shit blowing up, one liners galore and neck snapping, head exploding goodness.
Arnie really changed the way we looked at action movies; when The Terminator appeared on screen for the first time, he was this terrifying hulking monster that could crush you… like a cracker over soup. A star was truly born and he really helped to create the action hero as we know it.
Commando was the ultimate one man army movie, but as with most Arnie movies it had the twinkle in the eye. His movies have always had a sense of humour, especially with all the one-liners. It’s not art and it ain’t trying to be; just good old-fashioned ass-kicking with a side order of pain.
Arnie was always at his best in Sci-Fi action like Terminator, Total Recall, The Running Man and even the underrated The Sixth Day. It just always seemed to get the tone right and when he worked with directors like Cameron and Verhoeven, he did his best work.
He’s made a few slip-ups with some lame family comedies in the 90’s but as the action genre changed, he had to change with it.
I got kinda depressed when he decided to go into politics as cinema lost a true action great. Alas, his time was coming to an end and movies started to be more family friendly and quite frankly tedious.
But like he’s always promised… HE’S BACK! Arnie looks like he’s gonna kick some serious ass in The Expendables 2, The Last Stand, The Tomb (With Sly again) and possibly Terminator 5.
The genre we thought had died is making a comeback and it’s all thanks to Arnie and Sly; they created it and are still keeping it alive.
Soon it’ll be time for some younger guy to take the crown, but it looks safe enough for the foreseeable future. All hail The Austrian Oak.
