Arnold Schwarzenegger always promised that he’d be back and
ten years since his last leading role he is, in Kim Ji-woon’s Action movie The Last Stand. For Arnie in front of
the screen, little has changed. He may have lost some bulk in certain areas and
gained some in others but his strengths and weaknesses remain constant. He
remains a compelling screen presence and can still kick ass with the best of
them but his acting hasn’t improved. I had no intention of seeing The Last Stand until I found to my
surprise that its Director was one of my favourites, Kim Ji-woon, the highly
accomplished Korean Director of the Asian-Western The Good, the Bad and the Weird and the grisly I Saw the Devil amongst many others. So, I got up at 8:30am on a
Saturday and with my girlfriend away for the weekend, braved the snow and took
a bus to our local multiplex. It’s safe to say that Schwarzenegger isn’t the
box office draw he once was and there were 329 empty seats in the auditorium.
How do I know that? Because I counted them during a first half which is full of
needless exposition, crummy dialogue and weak characterisation. Things liven up
in the second half but I’d been better off staying in bed.
