YMMV / Commando (1985)

• Angst? What Angst?: Jenny is shockingly calm for someone who just watched her father kill a man in a rather gruesome way. To be fair, it's not like anyone else is doing better.
• Awesome Music: James Horner's steel drum and synth score.^note Except for the bucolic montage with Matrix and Jenny at the beginning. It is no surprise that the score album sold out in one day (still the record for the fastest sellout in the history of La-La Land Records). This was actually the second time an album of music from the movie sold out, as Varèse Sarabande's release also flew out of outlets (the La-La Land disc has more music, including the Power Station song - actually written for the film - over the end credits).
• Base-Breaking Character: Cindy is there to provide sex appeal and comic relief, and how successfully this works depends on the viewer. Some find her shrill and annoying, while others (included Siskel & Ebert, both of whom singled her out as the best part of the film) love her snarky personality and disbelief of the over-the-top action movie she's dragged into. Meanwhile, her waifish and extremely bony figure was probably considered much hotter in the 80s, but can easily ruin her intended sex appeal now.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: While Matrix fights one of the mooks in the motel, they crash into the next room, where a couple is shooting a pornographic film.
• Cliché Storm: If you were to ask the average person to imagine a non-specific 80's action movie, there is a strong chance that they will think of something very close to Commando. The retired special forces guy on a rescue mission to save his daughter from a vaguely-communist foe, becoming a shirtless M60-toting One-Man Army in the process, has certainly received countless parodies over the years. Much of the film's fandom today is drawn from how much of an unashamedly archetypical 80's film it is.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The villains killing two Red Shirt soldiers? Unforgivable. Arnie slaughtering an island full of soldiers? Hilarious.
• Cult Classic: While nowhere near as popular as films Arnie would later star in, it's pretty much the platonic ideal of an "Arnold movie", along with being a perfect example of 80s ham and over-the-top action, which has gained it a following.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Sully. The dude is a Casanova Wannabe with a humiliating memetic death.
• Evil Is Cool: Henchmen Bennett (for being Matrix's Psycho for Hire Blood Knight equal in combat, especially hand to hand combat), Sully (a Laughably Evil Smug Snake) and Cooke (an ex-Green Beret who is also efficient in hand to hand combat).
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • This movie is extremely popular in Japan, mostly thanks to a campy dub that makes it even more enjoyable.
  • Like many of Arnold's other movies, this film is really popular in Russia. To the point that Russian action star Mikhail Porechenkov directed and starred as the lead role in a remake in 2008.
• He Really Can Act: This is the film where everyone realised how good Arnold's comedic chops were. Sure, It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars, but his comic timing is incredible.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A cop describes John Matrix as "one gigantic motherfucker".
  • The film stars Rae Dawn Chong as Arnie's love interest and Alyssa Milano as his daughter. A decade later, Chong would discover a young waiter and give him his first acting role. That actor would both marry Arnie's real-life daughter and play a character who owns a starship called the Milano.
• Ho Yay: Perhaps the most unintentionally homoerotic movie ever made, particularly where Bennett is concerned. "I DON'T NEED THE GIRL!"
  • Though given how blatant it is, you have to wonder if it really was unintentional.
• Love to Hate: Bennett, for being far more awesome than the disappointing Big Bad of the film.
• Magnificent Bastard: John Matrix is a retired Delta Force colonel enjoying a quiet life with his daughter Jenny. When Matrix and Jenny are kidnapped by terrorists aiming to put ex-dictator Arius back into power, Matrix manages to kill his guard and escape the plane transporting him. Enlisting the help of a flight attendant named Cindy, Matrix bumps off Arius's lieutenants through his own gambits, including: using Cindy as a Honey Trap and pretending to offer mercy to one before dropping him off a cliff, and all the while piecing together clues to find Arius's island base and gathering up supplies and weapons. Flying to the island, Matrix stages a one-man raid on the base, killing all of Arius's men before engaging in duels with both Arius and his right-hand man Bennett, rescuing his daughter and going back to retirement.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "You're a funny guy, X. I like you... That is why I'm gonna Kill You Last."
    • "Remember, X, when I promised to kill you last?" ..."I Lied."
    • "あれは嘘だ"^Explanation("Are wa uso da"/"That's a lie.") The Japanese version of the second line above, due to the popularity of the film in Japan. As noted below, it's also one of the sources of the Japanese parodying the film.
  • "Don't disturb my friend. He's dead tired."
  • "(insert smug proposal), right?" "Wrong!" (BANG!)
  • "Fuck you, asshole." [Click.] "Fuck you, asshole." [Smack!]
  • "You're getting old, John. You're getting old!"
  • "I don't need the girl. I DON'T NEED THE GIRL!!"
  • The face Bennett makes when saying "I'M GONNA KILL YOU NOW!", doubles as Narm. Due to Parody Displacement, this meme is instead more popular when the above line is dubbed in Japanese, again thanks to its camp-gay translation and acting.
  • The entire Japanese dub itself in fact. It became popular on 2Channel in the mid 2000s, and received many parodies and MADs on Nico Nico Douga.
  • "Let off some steam, Bennett."
• Misaimed Merchandising: Diamond Toymakers released a series of action figures based on the movie, despite it being an R rated flick that children shouldn't see.
• Narm Charm: This movie betrays so much common sense that it wraps around 360 degrees to being awesome again.
• Periphery Demographic: This film has a huge cult following of fans who love it for its offbeat and goofy humour more than its action sequences.
• Questionable Casting: Bennett, who is stated to be John's only rival when it comes to being a One-Man Army. So why did they cast a guy whose muscle mass is at most a tenth of Arnold's? It even made number 1 on this list of "Biggest Mismatches in Movie Fight History". This is in looks only as his acting was enough to scare Arnold himself.
• Retroactive Recognition: Bill Paxton is a radio operator. Alyssa Milano as Matrix's daughter.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • When Arnie is holding Sully over a cliff, you can clearly see the wire running up his pants. It's that kind of movie.
  • Several of Arnie's grenades send soldiers flying through the air. Not only is the explosion itself a) a huge distance from the soldiers and, b) relatively small in comparison to the results, but the soldiers are clearly shown being launched off hydraulic platforms, with the propulsion rods on obvious display, as well as the grass mats used to disguise them shown flying as well.
  • All the guns in this movie practically have no recoil. At all. Arnie fires a machine gun one handed, and he barely misses.
  • When Matrix wraps Cindy's car around a telephone pole at the end of the car chase with Sully, the head on a dummy filling in for Cindy separates from the rest of the dummy body and flies into the air. (watch it frame-by-frame)
  • Did anybody notice the dummy soldiers standing at attention outside the island's buildings throughout the massive explosion near the end of the movie? There are multiple opportunities to see the obvious mannequins, since this explosion is shown multiple times from multiple angles, and several of the shots are duplicated.
    • Those same explosions are supposed to have been caused by a few claymore mines that Matrix placed outside a few buildings... but all the buildings are seen exploding from the inside.
  • During the mall scene there is a part where Matrix swings down from the top floor to the ground floor. During this scene it's very obvious that a stunt double was used.
    • Arnie's stunt double can also be spotted if one looks closely at shots of (1) Matrix being hit by Sully's car in the mall parking garage, (2) certain shots where Matrix drives Cindy's red convertible, (3) Matrix driving a bulldozer through the front entrance of the military surplus store.
    • A quick shot of Matrix throwing Cooke through a motel room door features actor Bill Duke replaced by either a dummy or a stuntman in a very obvious rubber mask.

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