Commando vs First Blood Part II (1985)

Let's travel back 35 years to 1985, when such concerns like major pandemics and world leaders of debatable competence were but far-off dreams next to rocking out before MTV and coking out on the stock market! Instead, there was just HIV and the Gipper and, er, forget I said anything. But still, what this time could definitely boast was the golden age for glistening, cordite-odoured, pec-polished, bad guy slaying entertainment for which concepts like 'self-awareness' or 'irony' were bourgeois nonsense. In this one year, the two exemplars of this apex of celluloid machismo arose--the glorious twin masterpieces that are Commando, and First Blood Part II! Or Rambo II! Or Rambo: First Blood Part--bah, let's just get on with it.

 Context! We've discussed Rambo before, and how the first film was, while more clear-cut in its morality than the book, still a decent enough look on the contemporary topic of treatment of Vietnam veterans. Of course, by this point, Sly Stallone was moving away from relatively grounded and gritty stories like that and the original Rocky, and joining in the magnificence of eighties excess. We didn't need the humanizing final confrontation of First Blood, where John Rambo breaks down into a crying wreck of PTSD-addled despair, when we had the Reaganist wave of patriotism, and millions of smug commies who could use a (safely fictional) dressing down!

On the other hand, this new instalment was being confronted by a rising star to the slightly more established Hollywood figure that Stallone was--Mr. Olympia himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had made his move by stepping into the big leagues with the memorable Nietzschean-themed combo of swords and muscle that was Conan the Barbarian. The stage was sent for a meat-headed royal rumble, and when all the spent casings are done covering the floor, a victor had to be established!

Let's start off our comparison with the storylines...such as they are. Commando is as simple as it gets--Arnie is former special forces muscle mountain John Matrix is trying to enjoy seclusion when bad guys trying to organize a coup burst in and steal his daughter. Of course, he ain't taking none of their shit, and sets about a rampage of head-cracking, phone-booth throwing, and explosive-tossing violence to get her back just in time. There's not much more to it, but then it knows you don't care. Interestingly, it's one of those few films that actually bothers to explain Arnie's accent--apparently Matrix is a defector from East Germany. Who knew?

Rambo, on the other hand, is definitely more of its time. After being arrested following his small town rampage in the first film, John Rambo is given the enviable task of being thrown back to the same place where he lost his friends and got traumatized, in the jungles of Vietnam. Of course, it's more interesting than just bashing rocks in jail all day, and so he throws himself back in to recover prisoners of war still held in communist camps. It's ripped straight from headlines of the day, with the POW theory being one espoused by the highest levels of government (though it was never proven, and ironically, not long after this relations would thaw between the US and Vietnam). Naturally, things don't go as planned, and Rambo sets about fighting the war all over again and doing it right this time. It's also pretty straightforward, but even more rooted in the era.

Don't worry, Sly, I had much the same reaction to Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot. 

Now our protagonists--both called John, both came from the best of the best of the US military, and both have physiques to have any Californian gym emptied in shame. Rambo here is marginally more grounded in reality--he's still messed up somewhat, he's always boiling over in anger, and be it venting his rage at his captors or his government, he's never afraid to lash out. Matrix takes everything in his stride, and simply does not give a fuck--need to stalk a henchmen? Jump into a random passenger's chair and rip it out to hide! Stop him from making a phone call? Rip out the booth and beat up an army of mall cops! Stock up on guns? Demolish a gun store and then act surprised when the cops show up! You can see Sly putting more focus into Rambo's emotional state, somewhat one-note as it is, but between Arnie's deadpan delivery and nonchalance, Matrix is the more entertaining.

Secondary characters? Well, Rambo has a slight advantage this time, with Richard Crenna as the always cool, always collected Colonel Trautman, Rambo's mentor and the only person he can really call a friend. It even has character actor Charles Napier as the suspect and slimy Murdoch, who gives the right contrast to Trautman. However, both films have a female sidekick of sorts to their muscular heroes--First Blood has Julia Nickson as Co, the stereotypically-accented Vietnamese friendly agent who has about one scene of competency before she gets stuffed into the fridge for Rambo. Commando, on the other hand, has Rae Dawn Chong as Cindy, who is not only more entertaining to watch, but stays through the whole thing, not only rescuing Matrix with a friggin' four-barrelled rocket launcher, but helping through to the very end. Let's call this one a tie.

The bad guys? Oh, Commando wins this one handily. First Blood II gives us Steven Berkoff as stereotypical Soviet Colonel Podovsky, who for some reason speaks in a pseudo-German accent. He's about as generic as most Red bad guys were around this time. Oh, and there's an evil Vietnamese officer who Rambo pulverizes with an explosive arrow. And some other thuggish Russian henchman, I guess.

Commando? Now, off the bat we have the Aussie awesomeness of Vernon Wells as the chainmail-wearing sadist that is Bennett, Matrix's former comrade and equal. When he breaks down into a pseudo-homoerotic rant at the final confrontation about stabbing Matrix's balls, it's brilliant. Bill Duke plays another hard-assed henchmen that Matrix has to grapple while interrupting a porno shoot, of course, and then David Kelly give us Sully, the slimy bastard that Matrix promises to kill last ("I lied.") They're all memorable, they're all evil enough to root for Arnie to tear into them, and that's what you want from your cartoony eighties ensemble of evil.

Now, finally, we gotta discuss the most important aspect above all--the action. First Blood tries to play its hand with Rambo playing as predator to Soviet and Vietnamese soldiers in the jungle, where he exhibits his skills in teleportation and being able to cake completely himself in mud within two minutes. Naturally, his enemies have never heard of such ideas as 'calling for backup', or 'keeping in sight of each other', which helps. It's still all good though, but soon Rambo relies too much on his exploding arrows, which must be tipped with antimatter for the boom they make. In this area, the flick still delivers the goods, although it feels slightly gimmicky.

Rommel? Patton? Amateurs. This is the end-all of military tactics. 

Commando? Now, if this doesn't leave a delightful cheesy grin on your face, I don't know what will. We have ludicrous clashes in a mall, we have them barging into a porno (which I guess had to quickly re-market itself to a very specific, different kind of fetish), and then there's the climax, where Matrix takes on an entire island of troops. Much like the man himself, the film does not give a fuck, and gives us everything--explosions, rockets, and Matrix slaughtering absolutely goddamn everyone with a machinegun that somehow gets more ammo the longer it fires. Rambo also uses a machinegun in his film, and do you know what he mostly kills with it? Friggin' computers. 

Oh, sure, it's silly the way nobody can hit an Olympian-sized Austrian, and Matrix needlessly paints camouflage on himself when his main tactic is sauntering through the open destroying everything in his path, but this excess, this ode to mayhem and leaden death, just makes up for it all. Mwah. And that's before we get to the confrontation with Bennett, with one-liners, silly choking faces, and overacting galore. Ladies and gentlemen, we have goofy eighties action perfection right here. 

So, at the end of this? Yeah, Commando wins for me. First Blood Part II was the bigger success, and had more impact on the culture, but in this instalment of their rivalry, Arnie takes one over Sly here (not to mention, Commando writer de Souza went on to make the 80s action flick to top 'em all). Of course, that's not to say that First Blood II is a waste of time for aficionados of this sort of thing, but I honestly prefer Rambo 3 for my fix of that, with even sillier action, an even bigger mullet on Rambo, and cranking things up closer to that nirvana of ludicrousness. And then there's the gold that is Rocky 4, which took the Red-bashing to its ultimate, Reagan-approved level.

And of course, Arnold had his nadirs over the years--Sly gave him what for with Demolition Man over whatever the hell Junior was meant to be. Still, all this has given me a hankering for more cheese with the Italian Stallion--and coming up next, I think I have just the thing.