Is Arnie Finally Back?

We are all aware of who Arnold Schwarzenegger is and we've all had five or six..teen too many beers and laughed ridiculously over our terribly bad Austrian accents whilst spouting out our favourite quotes from 'The Running Man' or 'Total Recall' at 3 a.m on a Wednesday

morning because you don't quite understand social etiquette or the fact that the neighbours are up at 7 in the morning for work but what we do understand is movies and action and Arnie and the fact that he has been blowing our minds and practically everything else up since the early 80's in thee most spectacular way over and over again.

I don't really feel like I need to lay down a history of Arnie because to me he is kind of like Jesus and everyone should know who he is but just in case you have no idea (and if you don't then I hope you saved enough room for my fist cos I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your Goddamn spiiiiine!) I'll lay it down for you. Arnold, known to his friends as Arnie (I call him Arnie) was a body builder who jumped to America from Austria or just pulled America to him using his big and muscular body. He then went to Central Park in New York and fought a bear (look it up) but was stopped by the man who built the Titanic who asked him to time travel to find a woman named Sarah Connor and kill her for a quick buck. Arnie not being able to speak much english at the time didn't fully understand his assignment but continued on his way, unfortunately he failed that mission and someone stole his arm to recreate him so that he could save his daughter from his old friend Bennett who in the end just had to let off some steam. After getting his daughter back he accepted the mission that General Kirby came to give him in the first place and ended up deep in a Central American Jungle on a mission that was classified as top secret but while Arnie and his platoon of cool but quirky men searched for their target they realise that they weren't the hunters but the hunted.

OK OK OK... So I may have confused some of the facts with some of his movies but I can't be that far off, can I? This is the point I'm making in the article though. From the late 80's till about mid 90's Arnie ruled cinema. All movie goers needed was a muscle bound action hero blowing stuff up and saying cheesy quips with almost every kill. As a child watching these movies I'd get tingles watching Arnie impale someone and telling them to "stick around" or cutting someone in half and saying that they "Had to split" it was a much simpler time but was it really a better time? Well, yes and no. Arnie reached the mid 90's and decided that his acting career must take some kind of turn because the old formula was growing tired and overused. Stallone was doing it, Seagal was doing it, Van Damme was doing it and even the less muscular action heroes like Bruce Willis jumped on the funny action hero band wagon and was doing it and not that I have a problem with any of these other actors but to me they just didn't capture that same magic that Arnie had over all those years. I believe Arnie noticed this too because he made a decision to try his hand at actually acting and took a role in a movie that I can't even begin to comprehend in my mind his reasons for doing. This movie was called 'Junior' and in case you haven't ever seen this movie or heard of it well basically.... He has a baby. YES, you read that right ARNOLD EFFING SCHWARZENEGGER stars in a movie where he has a baby. MIND BLOWING and if you watch that movie it really isn't as hilarious as you'd think it would be, it's a full scale emotional drama that has a joke or two here or there but not in that way you'd expect a movie about a muscle bound Austrian man having a baby to be and that is the turning point for Arnie's career.

After 'Junior' Arnie tried to rekindle his action movie career with some films that just never really hit the mark, movies such as 'The 6th Day' 'End of Days' and 'Collateral Damage' they were valiant efforts but nothing could really make up for the horrific mistakes that were in between these movies and I'm so sorry for bringing it up but movies like 'Batman & Robin' 'Jingle All the Way' and the debatable 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines' (which I personally enjoyed but boy did it get a tough time) and it was at this point that people had pretty much gave up on Arnie and his terrible terrible movies. Arnie being the self aware (Skynet joke) person that he is knew that it was time to step down from acting and let the tiny little embers of his action movie acting career die to a point where I personally thought could never be rekindled again. He did a stint in politics and became The Governator and I'm not American and I don't claim to know much about American politics but from where I was sitting he did a pretty good job and people had long forgotten most of the movies he did after 1994 and Arnie had regained a certain respect in the public eye and it looked like we would never see him on the silver screen ever again.

About 6 or 7 years go by without much of anything from Arnie except a cameo here or there but it was one cameo and one slight mishap while in office that brought Arnold back to the big screen and I can remember that cameo so well I have a little pee in my pants just thinking about it. The year was two thousand and ten, I had put together a rag tag bunch of men to accompany me to the cinema to catch a movie that I had been waiting on for a long long time. What was this movie? THE EXPENDABLES. There was maybe about 10 or 11 of us guys all together taking up more than a row in a packed cinema, this was so much of a man day that we genuinely decided that none of our girlfriends were allowed to join us and in some ways it was a cruel decision but a decision we had made for the safety of our women because we knew what was coming and we were about to get pretty Goddamn rowdy about it. We have our popcorn, we have our beers (We sometimes take beer to the cinema OK) and we have our brothers in arms and we wait patiently. Every flash of every Arnie movie I had loved in the past races through my mind whilst watching such a great throwback to all those action movies I'd loved so dearly growing up and then it comes.... I know the scene takes place in a church and Stallone is in a church talking to Bruce Willis and the door opens in the background and a slightly more saggy but still huge silhouette fills the door frame. I can feel it in every footstep, I can see it in every glowing ember of the giant cigar and then he hits centre screen and I kid you not all 11 of us men transformed into excited little boys and started cheering like crazy, we get so excited that the men behind us join in and start clapping and this spreads through the whole hall as all the men roar with applause at the sheer site of the man we had waited so long to see. Now that type of behaviour isn't really customary in Scottish cinemas, in fact this may be the only time it has ever happened over here. Arnie drops about 2 lines of dialogue and leaves and not one person was even disappointed with that fact. He came, he spoke, he conquered and it was at this point we knew Arnie.... WAS BACK!!

Now this wasn't a rocket launch back into the acting for Arnie but it was definitely the turning point and not long after that 'The Expendables 2' came out and he had a much bigger role, starring alongside some of the best action movie heroes ever to have existed and again I got that excitement in the pit of my stomach as all these guys switched lines and it was cheesy, it was brilliant and I was in action movie heaven but I was still left a little wanting. I was left considering the fact that we might just be facing another '95-'03 for Arnie. Is he just going to be churning out some family friendly bullpoop to make some quick money? How many desperate attempts at rekindling those dead little embers would we be seeing? Can I watch one of my childhood heroes on his knees begging for another chance? Well, luckily I didn't have to. There was a plethora of Arnie movies on the roster for the next few years, movies such as 'The Last Stand' which did kind of stick to that old formula, it was cheesy and stupid but it was still fun and it was good enough to be passable in my books but it was when I got to see 'Sabotage' that I realised that Arnie isn't just back but he has learned to act too. He looks old, he's rough round the edges but he is still built like a poop brick house and he is the kind of action hero we need in this day and age, he adapted and changed almost as if he's programmed to learn from what's around him to make him fit in just a little better, admittedly it needs a little work (Yeah I'm quoting Arnie movies that aren't even out yet) but I like what I'm seeing and it's not that big ball of 80's cheese anymore, Arnie is 100% back and it's something we have all been waiting on for a long time and whether or not you are looking forward to Terminator: Genisys (Someone needs to spell check that) I can assure you that outside of that there is going to be some really powerful and moving performances from Schwarzenegger, one I personally look forward to is Maggie so I can see him stretch those acting chops but let's not forget the fact that he is and always will be The Last Action Hero!!

I am The Dame

This is my opinion
Get your ass to Mars!