Introduction.
Close-up on sweaty, pumped-up muscles. Close-up on a motorcycle. Close-up on some oak logs tossed over a shoulder. Close-up on an incredibly intense soundtrack... well, relatively speaking, considering it was played entirely on a single synthesizer. Finally, a close-up of the face. AHA! There he is, our hero. What kind of absolute beast is this guy?
But... what exactly am I looking at here? Someone just blindsided him from behind. And then... it’s a close-up of a little girl. A close-up of ice cream. A close-up of someone feeding a child. A close-up of fishing. Even a close-up of a tender orchestral soundtrack. It turns out our monster is actually a devoted, good father.
If a movie starts out like this, I’m practically obligated to enjoy it. Usually, you only see this kind of stuff in Republican Party campaign ads.
What exactly is going on?
This scene wraps up that tedious little character development segment. Now we just have to slog through the plot summary before the actual carnage begins, which is delivered via the usual Basil Exposition monologue. Honestly, that ninety seconds was so mind-numbing I ended up skipping ahead. By the time I hit play again, those American paramilitary insurgents—led by a certain Macho Man from the Village People—had already snatched Arnie's daughter. It’s pretty obvious the guy's a flamboyant deviant, considering he's decked out in black leather, a metal mesh shirt, and a pornographic mustache. I mean, how much more camp can one person be? Of course, in this cinematic universe, being that flamboyant apparently makes you pure evil. I suppose that's just the way things work during the decade of the Republican Party.
After a brief car chase that ends with an absolute explosion of the vehicle, the Macho Man threatens Arnie's daughter, demanding he head over to the States to take someone out. Honestly, why the Macho Man doesn't just kill the kid once Arnie rounds that first corner is completely beyond me. Still, he makes plenty of other questionable choices throughout the film, which I will be more than happy to point out.
Arnie certainly wouldn't dream of ever setting foot in a place like that. On the plane, he dispatches the guy tailing him—which was quite a mess, by the way—and makes sure to stage the body so it looks like he’s just sleeping to avoid any unnecessary panic. He even tells the flight attendant, "Don't bother, my friend. He's... dead tired!" Ha ha, Arnie! You truly have a killer sense of humor. After that, Arnie slips through the plane's cargo hold and leaps from 300 meters up without a parachute. Luckily, someone must have spat on a field near the airport, because Arnie lands there completely unscathed.
An Italian guy enters the scene (ZAO!), trying his luck with a gorgeous Black flight attendant. Simply by being a woman and Black, she’s just a total idiot. HAW HAW!! She spends the whole time whining and proving how incompetent she is. It's such delicious satire and absolutely hilarious. Then Arnie jumps into her car and tells her to follow the Italian. He rips out the passenger seat just so he can hide on the floorboards, hoping the Italian won't notice him tailing them. The car happens to be a loud, bright red Chevrolet Corvette, yet Arnie doesn't even bother staying hidden on the floor for the rest of the chase. Honestly, I’d charge him triple the value of that seat just for the sheer lack of professionalism.
An Italian guy heads into this sketchy, smoke-filled Mexican cantina tucked right in the middle of a family shopping mall. Out of sheer boredom, Arnie takes out a few security guards and rips the intercom off the wall before resuming his pursuit of the Italian. The tailing ends abruptly when he tosses a ragdoll that looks suspiciously like our Italian friend into a canyon. What follows is a detective subplot where a flight attendant, Arnie, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo try to uncover the location of a secret military base belonging to those US paramilitary guerrillas. Turns out, it's located in LA. No, it wasn't in the family mall. Though, honestly, it would have made sense if it were right there next to that shady cantina.
Once they uncover the location of the second secret military base, they head straight to a local arms dealer stocked with—predictably—a massive supply of bazookas, missiles, landmines, and the like. Given all those American paramilitary guerrillas running around LA, business must be booming, so they're clearly making sure everyone stays well-supplied.
The police fall for Arnie's charms, but then a flight attendant goes full action hero and takes out a police truck with a rocket launcher in a massive explosion. Just when they think they're safe boarding a seaplane at the harbor, they get hunted down by insurgents in a military jeep armed with a heavy machine gun. Arnie handles them easily, but the jeep doesn't even explode. What a letdown.
Then they arrive on the island. WEEEEEEEEE! A total massacre! Arnie carefully applies camouflage paint, seemingly intending to save his daughter through a masterful combination of tactical cunning and stealth, but since he doesn't actually do any of that, the paint serves about the same purpose as pulling the passenger seatbelt in a Chevrolet Corvette. Arnie starts tearing through the local paramilitary guerrillas by throwing knives at them, but they don't just EXPLODIE. What a disapo— wait, no. Actually, everything is fine.
What follows is a mountain of corpses, frantic weapon swapping in his inventory, and massive EXPLOSIONS. Arnie gets hit by a single bullet and runs out of ammo, forcing him to hide in a garden shed. Despite being heavily wounded, he manages to slaughter the next three hundred thousand American paramilitary guerrillas by hurling seedlings and various junk like shurikens, then decapitating them with a garden gnome, after which they all EXPLODE.
The final showdown takes place in an underground boiler room: the Macho Man, armed with a gun and holding Arnie's daughter, versus Arnie, who is left with nothing but a broken garden gnome (having smashed it in the last EXPLOSION). Now I see why the Macho Man didn't kill the girl: he needs that target! The guy is as sly as a fox! Except, of course, because he says, "HAW HAW, I DON'T NEED A GUN EVEN THOUGH I COULD KILL YOU WITH IT IN TWO SECONDS!" before tossing the pistol aside. But that isn't enough for him, so he follows up with, "HAW HAW, I DON'T NEED A TARGET EVEN THOUGH I COULD LEAD YOU AROUND LIKE AN OX ON A LEASH!" and lets the little girl go. Then Arnie mutters, "Get outta here, you absolute moron," grabs the remains of the gnome, and stabs the Macho Man. It concludes with a happy ending where Arnie, the girl, the flight attendant, and Colonel Basil Exposition all walk off into the sunset together. And just like that, the story is over; apparently, the flight attendant has a thing for Arnie's rugged physique.
Moral of the story
In the right hands, a garden gnome is a lethal weapon.
