237, The Last Stand

Arnie is Back!!! (He always said he would be)

If you take out his CGI appearance in Terminator 3/4? and his bit parts in Expendables 1 & 2 you have to go right back to Collateral Damage in 2002 until you see the end of his regular appearances on the big screen.  Sly gave him the chance to get his feet wet again in 2012 but being realistic - its been over a decade until Arnie strode out in a leading role, so the question is - is he any good?

Well, no matter how good or bad he may actually be, for me - you cant beat a good Arnie movie.  In the old days he would stomp around jungles or war zones with the biggest guns, the loudest explosions and the cheesiest one-liners and this always made up for the fact that he was never that great an actor in the first place - but man, could he hold an audience.

And he isn't slowing down either - he's in a reported 7 new movies between now and 2014 and they include a new Conan and Terminator flick as well as a welcome return as Julius Benedict in the Twins sequel - Triplets!  Cant wait.

But before we get into any of that - lets get back to the Last Stand.  In this we see Arnie as an ageing Sheriff of a town close to the Mexican border.  When the FBI (Forrest Whittaker) manages to lose a wanted felon from high security who, armed with a 200mph corvette decides to make a run for the border its only Arnie and his merry band of slightly overweight and cookey Marshall's that stand in his way.

Its no surprise that Arnie is well past the 'one on one' action scenes seen in Commando or Predator however he still manages to leap around the set of this movie whilst using special effects to the max for some of the best kill scenes seen in recent times.  And he's not alone - fantastic appearances from Jackass legend Johnny Knoxville as a gun totting nutcase real and Luis Guzman as the ever hilarious inexperienced deputy.

The fights come thick and fast as does the poor town's total destruction that coincidently, takes place when almost the entire community are at a local football derby just means that there is no unwanted bloodshed and the 'older' community who stayed at home, manage to get in on the action too!

To be honest - there is not much more I can say.  This has some great battles, cracking one-liners and to his credit - quite an animated and intricate fight sequence at the end, seeing Arnie take on more of a wrestler stance for his battle with the Drug lord rather than an all out bullet fest which was definitely an unexpected outcome.

All of the cast were good and for Arnie himself - well, Yes.  He's Back!