I Wanted Better From Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be the man back in the day and it’s up for debate if even Sylvester Stallone was his equal.  Up until the late 1990’s, if Arnold was in something, chances are it was going to be great, and if it wasn’t going to be great it was going to be good.  Now, chances are if Arnold Schwarzenegger is in a movie it’s going to be mediocre, and if it isn’t going to be mediocre, it’s going to be fucking terrible.  This is not how I envisioned the Autumn Years of a childhood hero play out.

Fucking tie business

Failed power trip

Let’s start with Schwarzenegger entering the political fray and abandoning movies.  What was it, 2004?  I remember wondering, what the fuck is he doing?  It surely wasn’t a shot at advancing the greater good, because a man as intelligent as Arnold Schwarzenegger will know that the whole western plutocratic system is rotten to the core.  My guess is that the whole thing was one giant vanity project and a shot at back slapping the lobbyists who run the show into giving him the biggest acting role of all (POTUS).  Someone, somewhere, I bet, convinced him before this whole charade started that he could repeal the law and find a way to have an immigrant president.

All the while, Sylvester Stallone, a guy who could have actually ran for president (just fire up the Rocky theme on the campaign trail and marvel at the idiocracy), was laying the groundwork to redeeming his own soiled career with that excellent TV show The Contender.  But where was Schwarzenegger?  Trying to bullshit the bullshitters and take over the world, or something.  I was bored as fuck.  These were the absent years.

Weak comeback

Career poison

The cameo in The Expendables in 2010 had everyone wringing their hands in excitement.  I remember first watching it at the cinema, everyone loved Jet Li, Bruce Willis, Dolph and the others, but what many or most were waiting for was the big Chief, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  You could almost feel the crowd stop breathing as the door opened and Arnold walked towards Stallone and Bruce. I mean he looked kinda goofy, like something from Caddyshack, but it was him, not an awful CGI rendition (Terminator: Salvation).  That initial Expendables tease though, was a sign of nothing. Arnold was a joke in the second and third movies.  Following that came The Last Stand (tepid), Terminator 5 (terrible) and one really cool entry, Escape Plan, which drew heavily on Stallone’s drawling staying power.

Point is, we’re still waiting.

We haven’t had a real badass respectable Schwarzenegger movie in 20 years, Eraser was the last one.  And even then, for most of us still talking about True Lies and a possible third Terminator, Eraser was warm beer.  And so, I look at Why We’re Killing Gunther and I getting a feeling that Arnold Schwarzenegger is showing up in one of Nicolas Cage’s products.  You know, a former 90’s A-lister who appears in poor movies that are lucky to get a limited run?  That may be okay for Cage, but this isn’t what I wanted from Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Perhaps the most important point of all for that time?  Never attempt a career comeback with casreer poison Johnny Knoxville as your co-star.  Never, ever.

Dignity

Schwarzenegger in the type of adverts you see on pirate sites

The old Arnold, I would’ve thought, would’ve shown some dignity.  Don’t appear in a shitty cheap movie, say no.  Don’t appear in a big league festering turd, say no to that too.  I would rather see Arnold Schwarzenegger appear in nothing that these pieces of crap.  These days, I see him in video games for mobile phones… I mean, mobile video games are like the cheap, tacky cousins of real video games.  If I was Arnold’s agent, I’d advise him to think twice about allowing his likeness in the biggest games of the year, let alone crap like that.

Arnold, it seems, doesn’t care.

So why should I give a fuck if he doesn’t?  It’s like we’ve learned more about Schwarzenegger, the guy is all about self promotion and doesn’t even care about the stuff that made him famous. Celebrity Apprentice?  He’d be good at that I suppose, but I can tell you that I won’t be watching it.  Why couldn’t Arnold say no, and only appear in something like The Legend of Conan or nothing at all?

I just don’t get why the biggest of all time is going out like this.  You know… kinda reminds me on Mike Tyson’s sad career deflation…