The Last Stand – Blu-ray Review

20th May 2013

To paraphrase Arnold Schwarzenegger’s paraphrasing of his own most memorable catchphrase…

“He’s Back!”

Yes, in case you’ve been living in a remote tibetan village, boiling up chewy Yak loins for the last ten years, you might have noticed that a certain craggy, saggy, Austrian Oak, has been missing from our movie screens throughout pretty much all of it.

Well, no longer folks! That’s right, Arnold has hung up his Governator, steel under-crackers, and resumed his acting career in earnest. After a number of cameo appearances here and there (usually to say something involving being ‘back!’), we have here, what’s known as a starring role movie. If you’re a Schwarzenegger fan of old (I am), and can still relate elderly Arnold now, to awesome Arnold back in the day (I can’t), then this film might be for you.

Plot-wise, It’s a pretty simple affair; in fact, it’s a western. We have a dusty old border-town in middle of nowhere, USA. Nothing ever happens there, and Arnold’s tired old sheriff (who used to be a top banana LAPD cop, which will come in handy later), has many demons, but is resigned to life in the town. The Sheriff of course, has a bunch of bored deputies, some of which long for proper action…do you see where this is going? Yes, that’s right; one day the sheriff and his posse, are forced to defend themselves from a heavily armed, ruthless drug running gang, who have come to the town, preparing for the arrival of their recently broken out of FBI custody, Pablo Escobar style, head honcho. The big cheese is on his way to the town (inexplicably, by fairly rubbish, but fast, muscle-car). Once there, he would cross the border, and disappear. Seemingly, the Feds, led by a typically confuddled Forest Whitaker (who has a helicopter, and a plane, and everything), just can’t keep up, let alone, outrun him. As a result, Arnold and co’ must make their stand alone.

This is the crux of the movie.

Luckily for them, our guys know local gun hoarding nut bar, Johnny Knoxville (who gets 2nd billing, despite being absent throughout most of the movie). Knoxville’s schtick is as tiresome as usual (unless you like that sort of thing), but provides the enhanced ordinance to our otherwise, hopelessly outgunned heroes. Fun with heavy weaponry ensues, culminating in the inevitable main-street showdown, and a one on one finish between Pablo (his name isn’t Pablo by the way), and Arnold.

That’s it….unless I mention a cameo appearance of Arnold’s ‘Conan’ sword, while they tool up for the showdown.

So, if you caught it at the flix earlier this year, you’ll already know how it went down. It made some dollar over its budget, but not much, and the budget wasn’t exactly enormous in the first place (about $30m). Reviews were often positive, but not ecstatically so, and one didn’t find too many folks heralding the movie in an overtly hyperbolic way. This probably did it a favour actually as, certainly from a subjective point of view; expectations ended up being quite realistic, and, it must be said, reasonably well met, once seen.

The same will no doubt go for buyers of the DVD and Blu-ray.

I can certainly say, despite reservations regarding Arnold’s return to acting; I enjoyed the movie. Certainly, on the level at which it sets out to succeed, it really does. There may not be anything here you’ve not seen a hundred times before, and in reality, you could substitute Arnold for Stallone, Seagal, or Van Damme, and you’d still have almost the same movie. In this respect, this again seems to underscore the idea, that the movie is succeeding at it’s stated goals. I mean, the type of 1980s action movie, so lovingly being channelled here, were exactly like that to one degree or another, in terms of interchangeable leads.

So, the disc under review here at Filmwerk Towers is the Blu-Ray edition, and the picture quality is very good, certainly up to par with a kind of modern standard, if not absolutely top draw. The film is presented in an anamorphic 235:1, with both Dolby Digital and DTS-HD 7.1 Master audio. There are some nice vistas on offer here that make the most of that aspect ratio and hi-def clarity, but I felt that the lighting was a little uneven between some shots. Although, thankfully, not in the overused league of, say JJ Abrams 2009 Star Trek reboot, there is some nice lens flaring and bleached out colour grading going on here too, which works well, particularly in a movie of this type. It would seem that some careful thought has gone in to the overall look of director Jee-Woon Kim’s shot choices and set-ups, even if the movie overall doesn’t always maintain consistency. I’m a sucker for dutch angles, especially when there’s this much sky on offer, so I didn’t mind the enormous amount of them cropping up throughout the film. On the other hand, I am really not a fan of CG gore and bullet impacts, which although the movie will be rated 15, are numerous, and sometimes quite graphic. It seems to me that, traditional explosive squib, blood and prosthetic effects still have a considerable edge in terms of visceral brutality and visual effectiveness. One can speculate in fact, that the film’s 15 rating may well have been bumped up to an 18, had the same effects been done in the traditional way. A discussion for another time methinks.

Extras

The single disc presentation is not exactly overflowing with bonus content (no humorous Arnold commentary for instance), but there is about an hour’s worth in all:

Not in my Town: Making The Last Stand – This is a 30 minute breezy making of doc, featuring the usual cast and crew comments, mainly on-set. I’m normally not a fan of this type of documentary, especially when discussing the cast and crew contributions. Actors being interviewed while on-set, have a less informed opinion on the movie (because they haven’t seen it!), and sometimes come across like they are simply towing a party line, rather than getting down and dirty with their thoughts. Arnold is traditionally terrible for this, and will always be found describing, even his most clunky movies as ‘fantastic!’. What the viewer interested in getting granular with a film wants, is for the ‘making of’ doc to be something mostly ‘after the fact’, and from an ‘in retrospect’ angle. Naturally, this is not always possible with the typical lead time between shooting and releasing the movie, and the home media release date. So I guess we can cut it some latitude.

Cornfield Chaos: Scene Breakdown – 12 minute featurette describing the various techniques used to create one of the film’s major action sequences

The Dinkum Firearm & Historic Weaponry Museum Tour – 12 minute featurette detailing the enormous eclectic collection of weapons and ordinance featured in the movie.

Actor-Cam Anarchy: With Johnny Knoxville and Jaime Alexander – Ten minute informal on-set featurette

Deleted Scenes – 6 deleted scenes

Extended Scenes – 7 extended versions of scenes from the movie

Not a bad effort then, and like I’ve already tried to hammer home, If you take the movie at face value, leave your brain at the door, grab the popcorn and kick back; The Last Stand is not a terrible way to spend a couple of hours.