Release Date: June 21, 1996
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vanessa Williams, James Caan, Robert Pastorelli, James Coburn, James Cromwell
Directed by: Chuck Russell
Distributed by: Warner Bros.
MPAA Rating: R (violent action throughout, some language)
Arnold Schwarzenegger is the king of action movies. He made early appearances as a muscleman for fitness ads and videos, but his breakthrough came in 1984 as the headliner in James Cameron's blockbuster, Terminator. He followed up the role seven years later in the film's sequel, demonstrating a relatively great amount of range in his ability to portray a foil of his own character. But in the five years since Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Schwarzenegger has been in a bit of a neutral zone. He received moderate amounts of praise with the bland-but-exciting True Lies, but has yet to inspire the same sort of box office success that he did in 1991. In an attempt to reverse this downward trend, the muscle-bound Austrian has starred in Chuck Russell's Eraser, an action flick with a healthy dose of neo-technological updating.
Most of the updating comes in science fiction form, for the futuristic weapons and technology involved is unlike the reality-based likes of Michael Crichton or, more appropriately, Tom Clancy. The plot bears a resemblance to a construct of the latter author, involving scheming and intrigue between defense contractors and high-ranking heads of state in Washington, DC. But at the root of the business are Arnold and his never-ending conquest to conquer the English language as well as the hearts of action movie fans everywhere.
Schwarzenegger stars as US Marshal John Kruger, an experienced agent in the federal government's Witness Protection Program. His tactics involve staging a death scene for his witnesses -- convincing their would-be killers that the deed is already done -- and then giving them a place to hide until their testimony can be heard.
His latest project is the genuine article. Unlike most of the scumbags he saves, Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams) is an honest woman. She works for military defense contractor Cyrez, a company who's developing an experimental new weapon which fires aluminum rounds at near the speed of light. But Cyrez has been selling these weapons to third-world dictatorships, and Lee can pin the goods on them; all she has to do is sneak into Cyrez, copy some files onto a disk, and beat it before being found out. Everything goes well except for the last part, and so Marshal Kruger is called in to handle her disappearance. Needless to say, that too fails to go as planned, allowing for a majority of the movie's action scenes during its second half.
The worst moments in Eraser come when director Russell and writers Tony Puryear and Walon Green attempt to play up the suspense and intrigue. Of course, it's almost required these days for an action movie to make some attempt at pretending it's not, but no one involved has the intelligence or the foresight to develop the theme. Eraser is not a suspense movie, it's not a technothriller, and it's not a mystery movie. The only amount of suspense involved should be that which sustains the audience's attention for two hours on a summer afternoon; everything else is unnecessary.
And for the most part, Eraser does that. The attitude given toward Arnold and his muscled mass is much the same as in Terminator 2. In fact, even the Alan Silvestri score and Walter Werzowa's title theme bear similarities to Brad Fiedel's score for the earlier film. This is never more apparent then in the final reel, when Schwarzenegger bursts through a wooden-planked floor in full flex and toting two rather large automatic weapons of futuristic design. He proceeds to fire at random, leveling every bad guy in a one-mile radius in less than thirty seconds.
The number of absurdities about equals the number of bonuses, which means that on the whole, the film isn't a waste. Anyone who ventures out to see this film will likely be prepared to handle the unexplainable idiosyncrasies in Mr. Schwarzenegger's wake, and his core group of fans ought not to be disappointed. Perhaps the chief complaint that will be made is that it's so familiar, like a bad case of déjà vu: we're not sure where we've done this before, but we know we have. But for most summer movie goers that's hardly a concern, and so all for all, Eraser serves its purpose.
all contents © 1996 Craig Roush