Most of you have heard his name. Some of you can even spell it. He’s a man short on talk (see: heavily accented) and long on action (see: brutally explosive). He’s the proud owner of a massive chest that might give Dolly Parton pause. He has saved the world countless times from aliens, cyborgs and even Satan himself. But saving his own career may be the one feat not even Arnold Schwarzenegger can accomplish.

There’s tough, there’s tougher and then there’s Arnold. Over the course of his cinematic career, the five-time Mr. Universe and seven-time Mr. Olympia has undergone every sort of pain imaginable. He’s been tossed over waterfalls and blown to bits. Then there is the usual assortment of beatings and shootings that are par for the action-hero course. One thing’s for sure: Arnold always comes back. He takes a licking and keeps on kicking. Everything is fodder for this one-man Bosnia: He blasts his way to salvation, leaving more corpses in his wake than an Ebola epidemic. Villains of all stripes are dispatched with terse one-liners. “Consider that a divorce,” he grunts as he blows away Sharon Stone in Total Recall. Talk is for the weak; Arnold acts. And punches and shoots and pulverizes. Like an Old Testament God, he seethes with righteous indignation, raining fire, brimstone and heavy artillery on everything evil.

But even this god of war had to adapt to the 1990s and its politically correct paradigm. Changing times required a change of pace, and Arnold gamely struggled to reinvent his image with films like Last Action Hero. This 1993 effort (read: it’s an effort to watch) was intended as a sort of film within a film; the dreadful result is more a film without a film. Subsequent comedies like Junior, in which he became the first man to give birth, miscarried at the box office. When the news leaked in 1997 that Arnold had undergone surgery to replace a faulty heart valve, it was seen as the final nail in the coffin. Age and poor career choices had succeeded where the T-1000 had failed.

It would be another two years before Ah-nuld reappeared on the big screen, in the millennial action thriller End of Days. Hyped as “Arnold vs. Satan,” it was savaged mercilessly by critics, who opined that “burning in hell might be a better option than seeing another film by Schwarzenegger.” With a cool reception at the box office, the film was seen as the last gasp of a fading star. As it turned out, Arnold was still good for another gasp, namely 2000’s evil twin picture The 6th Day. Arnold called the film “timely” in its discussion of cloning. Audiences found it timelier to avoid the film altogether.

A new crop of action stars has taken over, among them Brendan Fraser, Jackie Chan and Keanu Reeves, virtual unknowns in Arnold’s heyday. They hold the cards now, they draw the crowds and pack the theaters, while The 6th Day plays to empty seats and bittersweet memories. Faced with extinction, what’s an old warhorse to do?

The future holds sequels (Terminator 3 and True Lies 2) while the present holds the underwhelming terrorist actioner Collateral Damage. Originally scheduled to debut last fall, the movie was put on hold after the events of Sept. 11. Released last weekend, the picture has all the ingredients for success: a patriotic theme and a war on terrorism waged by America’s favorite muscle-bound stalwart. The ingredients are timeless, but the product is stale. The plot revolves around firefighter Gordon Brewer (Schwarzenegger), whose wife and son are killed in an explosion set by Colombian terrorist El Lobo. When the terrorist eludes capture, Brewer decides to seek vengeance for his family on his own.

Colombians protested their negative portrayal in the film; Arnold should be the one protesting. There is much unintentional humor in the spectacle of this giant Vienna sausage doing his level best to emote. His only shining moment takes place after the death of his family. Draped in a blanket and tottering before a background of rubble and smoke, he looks at the little corpse of his boy with a haunted, guilt-ridden look that is so genuine even the most jaded viewer cannot help but be moved.

The parallels to Sept. 11 are obvious, with one important difference: Reality robbed us of swift vengeance. Fantasy offers us the closure that real life fails to deliver. In the film, it seems that our hopes are not unfounded. El Lobo sympathizers publicly note that the loss of Brewer’s wife and child was merely “collateral damage.” Enraged, Brewer storms into their offices with a baseball bat, snarling “You want collateral damage? I’ll give you collateral damage!” before proceeding to dismantle the place. The audience is on the edge of its seat for this one; this is raw passion, unrestrained by bureaucracy or political correctness. He’s doing what we’d all like to do to al-Qaeda and its supporters.

Unfortunately, that moment of catharsis is also the last. The rest the film is bogged down in bad acting and action movie clichés. Most unforgivable of all, Arnold becomes human. Note to the director: have done with the tortured heroes, the conflicted warriors. We like our Arnold resolute, unyielding and triumphant. What we get instead is an Arnold shaken, not stirred. To see our invincible Terminator brought low by a terrorist is to receive a cinematic blow to the groin. It’s painful, it’s excruciating and it turns us completely off. Rocky may be beaten and Jackie humbled, but Arnold is superman.

But age has withered and custom staled the essence of this superman. The impact of the accent has long worn off, and has indeed entered the lexicon of pop culture as a metaphor for “tough guy.” The fabled musculature, while still incredible on a man of 54, has lost some of its vitality and much of its novelty. Bodybuilders are de rigeur on ESPN2, and Arnold’s very success in popularizing the sport has ironically decreased its uniqueness. The current roster of action stars no longer includes six-foot Aryan walls of muscle (though funny accents still abound). As James Bond, Pierce Brosnan has managed to elude age with a suaveness and wit to be found nowhere else. Jet Li can offer his lightning-quick martial arts skills to woo audiences. As for Arnold contemporaries Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis, their biggest successes of late have not been in traditional action fare. Arnold’s strength is his strength, and films like Collateral Damage haven’t done it any favors.

It is perhaps too late at this stage of the game for reinvention. Arnold is confined by the Arnold he himself constructed, plate by plate, bullet by bullet. The promise of a third Terminator and a second True Lies smacks of desperation for a hit, but it might conceivably succeed at enhancing and updating his image, keeping it relevant while maintaining the integrity of his essence.

In his most famous line, Arnold promised us he’d be back. It remains to be seen if he can make good on his word.

film

Collateral Damage

Directed By Andrew Davis

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger

Warner Bros.