The Top Ten Arnie films
“You’ve just been erased.“
Although it may not go down in the annals of history as Arnie’s best movie, this is a solid action film for his fans, with the heavy artillery department working overtime.
Our hero is an ace enforcer for the US witness protection programme, who comes up against some serious bad guys in control of deadly hi-tech weapons while trying to protect a witness.
Lots of big guns And lots of fun.
“I’ll be back! Ha! You didn’t know I was gonna say that, did you?“
Arnie reteams with Predator director John McTiernan for a boisterous, tongue-in-cheek action fantasy.
A young film fan finds himself playing sidekick to his big-screen idol Jack Slater (Arnie) after coming into possession of a magic cinema ticket. Arnie gamely sends up his 80s action persona and Ian McKellen pops up as Death.
Despite its failure at the box office (largely because it was released alongside Jurassic Park) this is a bit of a gem.
“I’m not into politics. I’m into survival.“
Fresh from the success of Commando and Predator, Arnie stars in this gleefully lurid adaptation of Stephen King’s futuristic tale of convicts forced to compete in a deadly, gladiatorial TV show. Think I’m A Celebrity… with chainsaws, as inmates Jesse Ventura, Yaphet Kotto and Maria Conchita Alonso do whatever it takes to survive.
A prime example of how futuristic films always resemble the year in which they were made. Think big, metallic shoulder pads, lots of them.
“No more complaining. No more “Mr. Kimble, I have to go the bathroom”. Nothing! There IS no bathroom!“
Arnie ignores the advice about never acting with children or animals in this artful medley of the elements most likely to make a box-office hit. How can you maximise Arnie’s muscular, awkward appeal? Put him, like a fish out of water, into a crowd of screaming, uncontrollable, pre-school kids.
“I eat Green Berets for breakfast. And right now, I’m very hungry!“
If violent action is your thing, then so is this. There’s probably more of it per second that in any other film around.
The mayhem is largely wrought by a particularly mighty Arnie (the film opens on a close-up of his biceps) as Col Matrix, a retired commando trying to rescue his daughter from an exiled dictator.
A tad thin on the old plot this is still great Eighties fun, in which Arnie never delivers one blow or bullet where three will do.
“Relax. You’ll live longer.“
Based on a story by Blade Runner author Philip K Dick, Arnie stars in Paul ‘Robocop’ Verhoeven’s rip-roaring sci-fi thriller as a construction worker who assumes the identity of an intergalactic spy on a mind-boggling trip to Mars.
Verhoeven hits the action accelerator for another blood-and-guts ride full of first-rate baddies, terrific special effects and witty pay-offs.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“Yeah, but they were all bad.“
How a James Bond movie might be if there were a Mrs Bond at home. Computer salesman Harry (Arnie) has been a secret agent for 15 years without wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) suspecting. But when she gets involved with a salesman who pretends to be a spy, Harry’s two worlds collide.
The whole film is like a camped-up 007 adventure, with even more sensational effects.
“I ain’t got time to bleed.“
A semi-remake of Alien, told in terms of jungle warfare, this is a violent, brutal and exciting science-fiction thriller that scales new heights of savagery even by the standards of previous Arnie films.
It would be nice not to be able to forecast the ending of one of these crescendos of death, but we all know that Big Arnie will triumph in the end, even over an eight-foot-tall, nearly invisible alien with an armoury of sophisticated weapons that tear his men apart.
“Hasta la vista baby!“
Sent to the present from a war-ravaged and machine-dominated future, Arnie returns as the iconic T-800. But in an inspired piece of plotting, the cyborg’s second coming finds him reprogrammed as protector, not killer, with the sole objective of protecting teenage rebel John Connor, the future saviour of the human race.
On of the best sequels ever made and – at the time the most expensive film ever made – this has all the action and jaw-dropping effects you’d expect from Hollywood’s pre-eminent ground-breaker James Cameron.
“I’ll be back!“
In the only film of his career where he plays the bad guy, Arnie gives his best ever performance as the unstoppable robot assassin sent from the future to present-day LA to kill Sarah Connor, a world weary waitress who holds the key to humanity’s future.
Director James Cameron’s weapons-grade action thriller tapped into our fears about the ever increasing incursion of technology and the action is tense, brutal and uncompromising. Arnie only has 18 lines but he delivers them with mean aplomb, making the T-800 one of the most iconic figures ever to grace the silver screen.