Poor, poor Arnold Schwarzenegger. After ruling the 1980's with many action pictures, the beginning of the 1990's seemed promising with Terminator 2: Judgement Day and True Lies. Since then, he's done nothing but crap like End of Days, The 6th Day, Junior, Batman and Robin-- need I go on? Does Collateral Damage prove any different?

In Collateral Damage, L.A. fireman Arnold Schwarzenegger has a kinky shower with his young son before watching his son and his wife get blown to bits in an explosion in a building. Enraged, he does what any other fireman would do: travel to Colombia to take down the terrorist who was responisble for the bombings.

While Collateral Damage is certainly better than Arnold's recent fair, it has its share of problems. After a decent beginning, the movie has serious pacing problems once Arnold gets into Colombia. He meets up with some different people briefly, like John Leguizamo as a drug dealer, but it doesn't really contribute much to any part of the plot. The pace picks up in the final bit of the movie, but much of the middle drags. There is a sort of neat plot twist at the end, for those of you who care about the complex and deep plots in Schwarzenegger pictures.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is about the same as usual here, although he manages to look grief-stricken enough after his family is blown apart. He does have a lack of one-liners this time around, although his encounter with a wacky reporter is great stuff. Elias Koteas, better known as Casey Jones, does an OK job as a CIA guy. At first it seems as if the movie is going to focus on his character a bit, since he's a sort of maverick CIA agent, but he doesn't really do much in the movie. John Leguizamo is hilarious in his small part in the movie--perhaps this would have been better if it was a Schwarzenegger-Leguizamo buddy cop picture!

The movie gets really over-the-top in a climactic battle. It feels a bit out of place, but manages to be a hilarious finish to the movie. As a whole Collateral Damage is more entertaining than Schwarzenegger's recent efforts, but is still not as good as his classics from the 1980's.

I give Collateral Damage **1/2 out of ****.

I've seen quite a few action flicks, and among those I've seen quite a few featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, so I didn't go into this movie expecting much. I'd also like to add that Mat doesn't know what he's talking about. True Lies sucked, and about the same he did True Lies, he also made Kindergarden Cop. In fact, I would go as far as to say Arnold has only been in one movie during the 1990's that did not suck.

Collateral Damage makes no attempt at breaking this streak suck ass movies. After Arnold's wife and kid are killed by a terrorist, Arnold decides to strike back through a series of gaping plot holes, and overly convenient connections. Arnold eventually ends up in Columbia where the guerillas hate America because "they've been disrupting our drug trade." Remember kids, if there are any groups of people who happen to be against the American Government, they must be evil drug cartels that kick children.

I would comment on the acting, but I don't think I even say any acting. The same could be said about plot, and direction.. Even the explosions looked like shit.

* out of ****