Rating: Summary: Me arnold, me kill you now...ungabunga Review: I give this movie a bad rating because of the way they messed up the ending. There is a very, very good scene at the end where he uses an ironic method to kill the bad guys.BUT THEN THEY COME BACK TO LIFE!!! So arnold picks up one of them and throws him head first through an electric curcuit baord, and then he chops up the other bad guy with an axe. Now remeber, he's supposed to be a fireman, not Connan the Barbarian!!!! This is just another typical Arnold flick where the movie producers make him look like a killing machine. and for those of you who don't know..."ungabunga" is a phrase from the old captain caveman cartoon.
Rating: Summary: very good movie that would keep you on the edge of your seat Review: this was a great arnold movie but it is still not as good as the terminator series. I have to tell you one thing this was an excelent movie you should really see this. Arnold plays a loving husband and wife. one day his wife brings his child to the doctor and bomb goes off. Arnolds child and wife gets hit in the crossfire. So Arnold goes on a mission to kill the man who killed his wife and child. The man who killed his wife and child is a terrorist known as the wolf. So the rest of the movie you see him fighting the wolf.
Rating: Summary: Average Arnold Vehicle Review: Although the big media hype was in not releasing it as scheduled in late 2001, it's just a normal, average Schwarzenegger action film. On the up side, the plot doesn't include the bad puns of Commando, or focus solely upon special effects or a death a minute. There's a plot, Schwarzenegger plays it straight, serious, and very, very well. The effects are good, but do not overwhelm the story line. And there's a plot twist that you simply do not expect. The down side is there's an undertone of typical Hollywood government conspiracy baloney, but the more egregious parts may have been edited out. As it stands, there are things that are just plain silly about the State Department and CIA sub-plot. And the scene where the FBI terrorist investigation guys are told by a CIA guy that when they have "full security clearance," then "Intelligence" would cooperate was a sardonically funny example of the screenwriter's profound ignorance of his own government. It's ok, but frankly, I prefer True Lies, Total Recall and Conan the Barbarian.
Rating: Summary: not arnolds best but could've been better Review: i thought this movie was great as a terrorist thriller, the action was decent but pretty weak at times and could've been better, the story was good having terrorists kill his family and then he comes right after them in columbia in a great adventure, the action scenes were a bit dull for an arnold movie but still i enjoyed it for the adventure & suspense.
Rating: Summary: An action film rendered irrelevant by real world events Review: Life has imitated art with chilling timing long before "Collateral Damage," which was originally slated for release at the end of 2001, but which was shelved indefinitely after the events of September 11th. When "Marooned" echoed the plight of Apollo 13 and "The China Syndrome" seemed to predict Three Miles Island there was general relief that the films were much worse than the real world events. Obviously, that is not the case with this film. Another way of making the same point is to note that "Marooned" and "The China Syndrome" were realistic in a way that this Arnold Schwarzenegger film is not. In a world where Todd Beamer can be heard saying "Let's roll" moments away from death, any one liner that Ah-nold snarls in the course of this film is going to seem even more cartoonish that usual. Schwarzenegger is Brewer, a Los Angeles fireman who watches in horror as his wife and son are killed by a terrorist bomb. The political issue is for Americans to leave Colombia alone, so Brewer goes off to Colombia and tracks down the murdering scum who killed his family. If you think an L.A. fireman can so easily turn out to be a first-rate killing machine in the jungles of South America then you will probably not be surprised that the bad guy, Claduio "El Lobo" Perrini (Cliff Curtis), actually game to the United States to personally detonate the bomb (cross-apply the above arguments on how real world events have made this Hollywood film seems hollow). All things considered, "Collateral Damage" is at least an average Schwarzenegger action film, and, no, he does not look too old to me. That fact that Brewer is an "ordinary" firefighter who is apparently a quick study when it comes to military tactics, actually takes away from my enjoyment in the film. I prefer to care about what the hero is doing rather than always wondering how he learned to do it in the first place. Then there is a massive instance of irony involving another woman and son that makes it clear that this film is not only going to be an exercise in slaughtering drug cartel members but a morality play in which Brewer will have to redefine the difference between himself and his opponent. I do have to wonder if they cut a subplot from this film. Early on it looks like there is some sort of conspiracy in the American government that would justify, or at least explain, why Brewer has to go out and seek vengeance on his own. But early hints about such CIA gamesmenship disappears once Brewer is on the ground finding creative ways to dispose of his enemies (although the idea of rockets could be a less than subtle attempt to [do away with] a potential embarrassment to the government). The idea could have been lost in any one of the multiple rewrites that Hollywood films go through, or it could have been a conscious decision not to bash the government that is trying to find a non-vigilante response to a real world attack and which would never be identified with the idea of "fighting terrorism with terror." In the end, "Collateral Damage" will be a footnote to the times, not to mention possibily the last film for a while in this particular sub-genre of action films. Parts of the film remind me of parts of "Clear and Present Danger" and it is strange to think that the Drug War and the Colombian cartels are now secondary or even tertiary considerations. It was a wise not to release the film that fall and equally smart to release it and let everyone see that history had rendered the film irrelevant. By such standards, losing one star in the ratings is a trivial matter.
Rating: Summary: Why did I see this?????? Review: It was late. I should've been sleeping already but here I was stuck in the couch with a cat on my belly switching latenight channels. And suddenly, Arnold, "you want collateral damage?" goes about breaking up some guy's office. Probably too bored by the infomercial programming elsewhere I stayed and looked on. I was wondering how atrocious this is going to be. Who were going to be the bad guys? Russians? Mad scientist? Aliens from Mars? Ahhh, Colombians, the drug lords hidden in the jungles making coke for the insatiable American market. Well, Arnold solves the problem and gets the chick in the process. How else? What an unbeliavable waste of time trudging through this Hollywood effect-laden sludge. I'm Rick Friedman, this has been the Awful Truth, bringing you reality like no other. Catch ya later.
Rating: Summary: he's gettin to old.... Review: Plain and simple a 50+ year old man cant kick 2000 bad guys butts anymore. thats it from the front row.
Rating: Summary: An Older, Wiser Schwarzenegger? Review: Oddly enough, COLLATERAL DAMAGE doesn't feel like the Arnold films of the past. To a large extent, Fireman Captain Brewer has to think his way into and out of international political situations involving the accidental death of his wife and son. While the film is loaded with plenty of action sequences, they certainly aren't the centerpiece for this morality tale: instead, the psychological arguments about who's the greater villain -- the freedom fighter seeking vengeance for his people or the lone man seeking retribution for the senseless death of his family -- take the center stage. Schwarzenegger shows some greater acting chops in this outing than he has in the past, and it isn't lost on several key scenes. When he shows up at a US-based organization sympathetic to the cause of the Colombian drug cartels, his room-destroying wrath is palpable and not overglamorized with trademark one-liners. Still, there's no discounting the picture might've been a stronger, more credible political thriller had a lesser action star (the emerging Ben Affleck or even his screen buddy Matt Damon) taken on the lead role. Schwarzenegger deserves much of the credit for keeping the film progressing, as his character is in, perhaps, even frame of the film. It's nice to know that there's more to the man than grunt and flex. As a crossover hit, COLLATERAL DAMAGE deserved more attention at the box office than it got; had Harrison Ford played the lead, it probably would've.
Rating: Summary: Wouldn't have been very good before 9/11 Review: Arnold can be such a charismatic presence on screen that it's hard to bypass his screen appearances on hope that some of the old magic still surfaces. Or that he he's being handled with someone like the vision of James Cameron. This one, alas, is not that movie. I guess this one was shelved from release shortly after 9/11, because America, for some reason, didn't need to be told that there was a possibility of a terrorist attack on our soil. I guess sometimes underestimating the intelligence of people can pay off at the box office (see 'Jackass'), but in this case Hollywood decides to pull this one for awhile because we are not 'ready' to see such things. What Hollywood should have done instead is make a film that would actually challenge us about the issue about domestic terrorism. I had my problems with 'The Sum of All Fears', but at least that movie had layer upon layer of issues that go way beyond making things go Boom. There was no way to expect 9/11, but had Hollywood made an intelligent film to begin with on the issue, they could have shown the good their industry is capable of. But no, this one is complete formula. Arnold is a perfect man, one who can put out a fire single-handedly while saving a kitten from a tree at the same time. He is, of course a completely devoted family man, who's worst fault is parking in a red zone. The villains, of course, are one-dimensional creatures of pure evil, who have glazed looks in their eyes as they kill, even when it's one of their own. And, of course, our government only gets in the way when it comes to dispensing REAL justice. We've seen all this before. These are different times, and I suppose there is room for a rah-rah movie that gives us at least a bit of confidence in battling terrorism. This, folks, is not that movie.
Rating: Summary: incredible level of ignorance! Review: I'm not going to discuss this average hollywood action flick>But the level of igornace of the producer and the director of this movie is complety incredible. Mexican "mariachi" music in Colombia, Jungle in Bogota, Boat crossing borders between Panama and Colombia, Mexican accent soldiers in south america!!!!....Mexican folklore in colombian border......and so and so and so!!!!.......oh my god, I mean this movie only shows the high degree of ignorance of the american film industry, and of course, the american audience is even more ignorant than the producers of the film!!!...i mean...i guess all you american ignorants should be saying right now.."well ain't all the same from mexico to argentina"...first of all, is only one continent not 2 and it's name is america....yes is not only your country..and is of very bad taste to mix our culture and our folklore between spanish speaking countries...i guess you will love to have the mexican flag on the white house or iraki soldiers on the marine corps...well...we all know how ignorant you all are ...so take a good advice...do some research and study a little bit more about some other stuff outside your beautiful and almighty country and you can come up with a close to the truth movie that can help your ignorant american audience to understand a little more better our world.,,,excuse my spelling...i'm from another country....but at least i can speak your lenguage...don't worry , i'm really not interested for you to figure out how to speak mine...after all ...we are all wetbacks right!?
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