On January 18, the action icon is back(no pun intended) in "The Last Stand", his first starring role in nearly a decade. After getting a tune-up in best buddy Sylvester Stallone's two "Expendables" flicks, the former Governator is preparing for what he hopes will be a full-fledged comeback with "Escape Plan" also slated for release in 2013(Sly co-stars in that one). But will the public once again embrace the seven-time Mr. Olympia? He has significantly more baggage than Stallone did when he embarked on a similar quest several years ago. His political ambitions reportedly left the state of California in economic shambles and there was that much-publicized tryst with his maid which led to an illegitimate child and the dissolution of his 26 year marriage to Maria Shriver. At 65, he's officially a senior citizen and is no longer the larger than life presence that he was in the '80s. He promises that all his future roles will acknowledge this, but I wouldn't expect any thoughtful Clint Eastwood-style meditations on aging, either. The questions will soon be answered, but now let's recap the legacy of the greatest action star of all time.
The cocky and charismatic Austrian's total dominance over the pseudo-sport of professional bodybuilding throughout the 1970s inspired documentary filmmakers Robert Fiore and George Butler to make a film on the subject, and the resulting 1977 doc "Pumping Iron" was most Americans' first glimpse into the previously niche and underground world of these freakishly muscular athletes. With an ego as big as his biceps, he taunted rival Lou Ferrigno, compared lifting weights to having sex, and confidently stated his intentions to try his hand at acting. In other words, a star was born. He started pursuing this far-fetched goal after retiring from competition, but to say that his celluloid ambitions were met with considerable skepticism would be an understatement. After some minor film and television appearances, he landed the lead role in 1982's "Conan the Barbarian". It was a hit, but nobody was convinced that he could handle anything more than swinging a sword in a loincloth as evidenced by his next two assignments- the piss poor sequel "Conan the Destroyer" and playing back-up to Brigitte Nielsen in the dud "Red Sonja".
With few other prospects, he agreed to meet Roger Corman's young apprentice James Cameron about a part in a low-budget sci-fi action film he had written with plans to direct. It didn't take the future 'King of the World' long to realize he'd found the perfect monosyllabic android killing-machine and the course of history was about to be altered forever. "The Terminator" was released in the fall of 1984, and the compelling story, exhilarating action, and Schwarzenegger's instantly iconic performance blew away critics and audiences alike and the offers suddenly began to pour in. As one-man-army Col John Matrix in 1985's "Commando", he mowed down at least a hundred bad guys in an obvious attempt to show-up reigning genre champ Sly Stallone and his wildly popular "Rambo" flicks. 1986's "Raw Deal" was a substandard exercise, but there was another over-the-top crowd-pleaser right around the corner. Heading up the manliest ensemble in movie history, Arnold and his muscled-up mercenaries battled a deadly extra-terrestrial in 1987's "Predator". The A-list ascent was complete.
1988's "Red Heat" was a predictable buddy cop flick with James Belushi that was noteworthy only for being the first film to shoot in Russia's Red Square, but his next move was a surprising one. He took a pay cut to work with "Ghostbusters" director Ivan Reitman in a genial high-concept comedy alongside Danny DeVito as the unlikeliest of siblings. It paid dividends when "Twins" became a smash hit during the '88 holiday season and I would argue that it was every bit as important as "The Terminator" in Arnie's big screen evolution as the crucial softening of his image expanded his appeal to include women and children as well. But Paul Verhoeven's "Total Recall" had all the violence and mayhem that his testosterone-loving minions could ask for and topped the vaunted $100 million mark in 1990. He seemed to find the right balance between hard-edged action and light-hearted laughs when "Kindergarten Cop" also scored at the box office that December and Reitman was once again at the helm. With a re-worked story that cast him as a good cyborg, his career peaked with the 1991 release of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". James Cameron's superlative sequel left the original in the cinematic dust(no small feat) and was the highest grossing film of the year. He was on top of the world with a success string beyond even his own wildest imagination and you'd have been hard pressed to find anyone during George Bush Sr.'s presidency who wasn't a fan. There was nowhere to go but down.
His first real taste of failure was 1993's "Last Action Hero". This mega-hyped PG-13 spoof of the bombastic flicks that made him a household name was a big disappointment to his legions of followers who were expecting another rated-R epic along the lines of "T2". The fact that it came out a week before the year's biggest attraction "Jurassic Park" sure didn't help. He quickly turned to his personal savior Cameron and bounced back briefly in the big budget spy thriller "True Lies", a major hit in the summer of '94. It would be his last for a long while. Moviegoers passed on his third comedic offering, the ill-conceived "Junior" in which he reunited with the "Twins" team of Reitman and Danny DeVito to play the world's first pregnant man. 1996's "Eraser" took in a healthy sum but it was nothing we hadn't seen before. That same year saw the arrival of "Jingle All the Way", a dreadful Christmas comedy that was reviled by critics, ignored by audiences, and served as a pretty clear indicator of his dwindling popularity. Nevertheless, he pocketed a cool $25 million to assume villain duties in 1997's "Batman & Robin". But his performance as Mr. Freeze was universally panned and the film's icy reception effectively killed Warner Bros' most lucrative franchise. The love affair was over and the beleaguered legend had little choice but to go on a long hiatus to lick his wounds.He tried in vain to recapture some of the old magic in the 1999 supernatural thriller "End of Days" as a NYC cop who battles Satan on New Year's Eve. The movie was terrible and the public treated it accordingly. 2000's "The 6th Day" was a futuristic sci-fi action vehicle about human cloning but that title could also refer to the amount of time it took for it to get pulled from theaters. Post-9/11 sensitivity caused the release of 2002's "Collateral Damage" to be pushed back six months over a plot that involved terrorism, but that couldn't prevent it bombing too(pun intended). His career was on life support and he knew his only hope to resuscitate it was a return to the role that made him a Hollywood player in the first place. Despite the 12 year gap and Cameron's absence from the director's chair, 2003's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" didn't shame the series and brought in $150 million that summer- easily his biggest haul since "True Lies". It was the last hurrah, though. He chose to go out on a high note and used the regained momentum to start a new job- presiding over the world's eighth largest economy later that year.
Which brings us to the present and to the question currently on the minds of Tinseltown execs- What is Arnold's place in today's cinematic landscape? Does he even have one? I was having my doubts about a silver screen revival before I started this blog, but when Vin Diesel and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson(among others) turned out to be pretenders to the throne, it arguably meant the public was unwilling to allow that torch to be passed, and it only made his improbable rise to super-stardom all the more impressive. He's still one of the ten most recognizable people on the planet, a true one-of-a-kind success story. Even if "The Last Stand" is a flop, the tag team of Schwarzenegger and his skull-cracking counterpart Stallone in "Escape Plan" should prove too much to resist. How much carnage will these two cause in a full film together? Don't pretend that you don't want to find out. Then there's the proposed "Twins" sequel "Triplets" with Eddie Murphy rumored to be playing another long-lost sibling. Frankly, I shudder at the thought, but if Arnold wants it to happen bad enough it probably will. We're talking about a guy that decided he wanted to be Governor of California and made it happen in about two months. He probably would have been President if it wasn't for that pesky 14th Amendment. So bad movies, groping allegations, and old age be damned. There's only one Arnold.
