D-Day - Russian Commando (2008)

Uh-keeeey... what's going on here? D-Day, or as it's called on the net: Russian Commando, is also a scene for scene remake of the old Arnold-classic from 1985, and at the same time a (sort of) parody of the same movie. But it's far to serious and far to similar to Commando to count as a parody, at least that what's I think. But I don't mind really. If this is an unofficial remake it's a helluva way to fuck Arnolds ass, only if it could have been at as good as the original. But I'm afraid to say that we're not that lucky.

Mikhail Porechenkov plays Ivan, our Arnold in this movie. And... I won't go through the story. It's more or less the exact same as in the first one. His daugher get's kidnapped... yeah yeah. Well, let's skip that. I kinda like Mikhail in the lead, but he's so far away from Arnold when it comes to energy and charisma. At least in this kind of role. But he's a charmig actor that reminds me more of a kind bear than a killing machine. He just looks to nice to be killing people. He works okey in the action-scenes though. The rest of the actors is lousy, except some minor characters.

How do the parody work? Okey, some jokes is quite funny - but it's hard to make fun of a movie like Commando, because itself from the beginning has a tongue-in-cheek approach. The famous scene in the mall is now in a bath resort where Ivan is fighting lifeguards dressed in tropical hats instead of cops. The first car-chase after the attack on the house is now on a snowmobile chasing after two cars... and so on. The only action-scene that works is the finale, which has some nice stunt work and big explosions. But if you want gore, blood, mayhem, more fun, better jokes and a great action movie, it's better to stick with Mark L. Lesters masterpiece.

A russian remake of Commando sounded good on paper, but it never lives up to how much fun it could have been. Now it's just like Gus Van Sant's version of Psycho: quite boring.