The Last Stand

Jee-woon Kim's ability to make the viewer tolerate unbelievable plot twists and WTF characters and their motivations lies in creating a fictional micro-universe that, if you embrace it, gave you the experience the director wanted you to have. The Last Stand may have had all the makings to follow its predecessors in this, but somehow it all got screwed up. The FBI command room destroys the illusion of the fatalistic isolation of the heroes, the governor is an extremely inept actor (one you'd almost forget), and no one has drilled into the director's head enough that there's a marked difference between making a movie in Korea and the US. That's why some of the action scenes look pretty lame, even as the camera whizzes past on a crane when the characters are just standing around and talking. As a result, The Last Stand doesn't so much resuscitate Arnold's career, but the era of 90s B-movies with Van Damme, where main street stands in for an entire city, the supporting characters shoot the bad guys with one hand, fall in love with each other with the other, and the heroes don't give their honor away for free. I don't blame the director, though. Given that he still didn't know a word of English during filming, the blame clearly lies with his translator. (11/02/2013)

A likable cast in a simple action flick that sometimes surprises with a good idea and sometimes disappoints with a cheap cliché. With Arnold, big guns, sexy chicks, a fast car chase in a corn field, etc., The Last Stand is quite entertaining and definitely better than what the insipid trailer promised. (22/01/2013)

Three starts because, despite all its shortcomings (from my subjective perspective), the film was fun and didn’t make me want to turn it off. What’s hopeless, though, are its attempts at humour, and it’s sad to see that Arnold’s overacting has infected everyone around him (Stormare!!!). The final fight on the bridge is also a self-parody almost. But all that notwithstanding, I had pretty good fun. (25/04/2013)

Arnold portrays a character that would have very well suited John Wayne (a comparison with Rio Bravo is unavoidable). But whereas the Duke took building his own cult seriously, the former California governor exhibits a much better-developed sense of self-irony, which even pokes fun at the “untouchable” subject of patriotism. Schwarzenegger’s advanced age is a favoured target of the jokes in The Last Stand and the narrative is structured around the clashes between the slower world of the laid-back sheriff and the events of the action-packed world of national public enemies. Due to its having the nature of a comeback, The Last Stand is constructed as a return to genre traditions, so the old-school methods of the seasoned cop necessarily have a greater effect than the more modern techniques of the somewhat tardy FBI agents (though the sheriff also had to replace horses with Chevrolets for the purposes of product placement). The slightly overwrought screenplay uses most action B-movies clichés (angry emptying of clips, traitors in the ranks of the good guys) and fully utilises the fetishes that make the United States the United States (fast cars, high-power guns). However, the combination of western nostalgia and hyper-fast action works much less well here than in The Good, the Bad, the Weird. Probably because of the lower budget, the action scenes don’t go too overboard, the villain isn’t very distinctive and the film’s build-up is haphazard. All of the supporting characters merely clear space for Arnold, who – without exerting excessive effort – reaffirms his long-deserved place in the pantheon of great action heroes. Without him, this would be just a passable action flick shown on broadcast TV in which it probably wouldn’t occur to anyone to see an occasionally stimulating contribution to the discussion on the current wave of retro action movies. As with The Expendables, so with The Last Stand – whenever an action legend appears on the screen (only one such hero here, unfortunately), the entertainment value sharply increases. However, I am convinced that if Kim had had greater directorial leeway, this would have been a much more solid action movie in which the simply bad moments and the intentionally bad moments (in the mould of naïve actions flicks) would have been more easily distinguishable. As a new film starring Arnold, in the way we like him the most, The Last Stand is satisfying. As a new film by a South Korean master of many genres, it’s a bit of a disappointment. 65% (21/01/2013)

To me, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a character that is associated with Saturday nights, when I was looking forward to another action flick in which Arnie never ever disappointed me. That was the way it worked when I was young, and I got so used to Arnold that to me, he became the greatest action hero. But then he stopped making movies, which made me really angry, only to return in 2013 with a mouthful of great lines. When the movie The Last Stand opened in cinemas, I tried to find the time to go see it. I eventually managed to find some time in the middle of the week, only to find out I was the only person in the movie theater, which made me pretty sad because in my opinion a star of Arnold’s caliber does not deserve that. And what makes the whole thing even sadder is that this is actually an absolutely honest self-reflection by Arnold, who pokes fun at himself and his career as governor. On top of that, you get a great story and you will fall in love with pretty much every character in that sleepy American country town. Anyways, I had one problem with the movie and that was the crazy and shaky camera operated by the director Ji-un Kim. It’s strange that a director who does not even speak English is now making a movie that marks the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger. All in all, he did a good job – it was a bit unusual, but you can get over that. It’s just I am not used to this kind of filmmaking is all. As regards Arnold himself, I didn’t believe that he would get back in such great shape, but he still did put in an absolutely amazing performance that kept me entertained throughout the entire movie and I am really glad that he is once again a part of Hollywood. Hopefully, he will keep stirring things up. By the way, when Arnie uttered the last line on emigrants to the USA, I realized that there are very few American-born actors in this movie. Was it on purpose? It may have been, but despite that it’s an absolutely honest movie that will keep you entertained for 107 minutes and that’s the main reason why you should watch it and give it a chance. Arnold is simply the man. (24/02/2013)