Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Commando was slated for release on Blu-ray quite some time ago but was pulled at the last moment. A few people still managed to nab a copy at some stores resulting in some interesting prices on popular internet auction sites. This one has always been a pure action popcorn piece that moves along just enough to show a lot of Arnold's muscles and butt kicking. It's definitely mindless fun, but it's lost the allure it had when I was younger. Still, I'm glad Fox is delivering more of its catalog to HD and this is a welcome addition for action and Arnold fans.

Like the recently reviewed Predator, Commando is not a film you'd use to showcase your HD display. This is an old film and the production wasn't very high budget. Film grain is readily apparent and can be a bit intrusive at times. These new HD transfers are quite revealing when it comes to production value and I don't really know what you would expect from a film like this. Color saturation is very natural and detail is better than I was expecting most of the time. There is some light banding in some of the darker moments and the image is softer than most of the newer titles we're used to seeing in HD. Overall this is a subtle improvement over the DVD presentation, but a long way off from the glossy HD transfers we've become used to.

The similarities between this release and the release of Predator are almost so great that I thought about combining the reviews. Again production limitations and age hinder this production more than anything else. The lossless DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack sounds very dated and fidelity overall is a bit lacking. This is a front heavy mix but I thought dynamics were a bit better than what I heard in Predator. The low end is certainly more appeasing. Dialogue wavers in quality quite a bit and it was almost comical listening to the bland prototypical 80's electronic soundtrack.

Extras are limited to the film's theatrical trailer and D-Box support.

Commando has always been a testosterone fueled action flick with bad one-liners and plenty of action. The Blu-ray release is a subtle improvement over the DVD release but I think I would limit recommendation to diehard fans of the film.