Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By BOP Staff

January 23, 2013

Mom and Dad always liked you best.

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Now, the craggy, saggy ex-Governator seems every bit the joke his opponents have always claimed. After all that’s happened, does “hubris” even adequately describe a 65-year-old man who still wants to be the Terminator? Arnold's draw was never his acting ability. It was his charisma, charm, strength and vitality.

Now that all those things are gone, there’s not much left to root for.

Felix Quinonez: The harsh truth is that pop culture moves fast and being away for 10 years is like an eternity. A lot of the people who grew up watching Arnold as the Terminator and his other iconic roles have moved on and the target audience is probably too young to remember or care about Arnold in the peak of his game. And let's face it, the biggest draw in this movie was the return of Arnold himself. And when that doesn't work the commercials didn't give much reason to see this movie.

Matthew Huntley: All these points are valid for why the movie bombed, but I saw The Last Stand last night and I'll go on the defense and say it's a fun, mindless action flick. I know that sounds trite, but that's my opinion, and I'm with Jay in that I wished it had performed better. With Arnie's gubernatorial and loyal-husband roles aside, he's still a pleasure to watch as an action hero. What can I say - the man has a gift for making even the most ridiculous and incongruous parts fit together, and I do think he has a fair acting ability. Our guts tell us we should laugh at him, but he makes it so we don't.




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As to why the movie performed so poorly, I do think the lame title and banal plot played key roles, and yes, I think some consumers were so (understandably) turned off by Arnold and his extra-marital affairs they chose not to see this in protest. The same thing has happened to Mel Gibson, and even though I think moviegoers should separate celebrities' personal lives from their on-screen roles, it's not always easy.

Shalimar Sahota: I can only imagine that after having played Governor and having his “not-so-private life” become public, his name is now unfortunately working against him, turning some potential audiences off. Even I was initially turned off by this, but what's kept me interested is director Kim Jee-woon. A Bittersweet Life is phenomenal and The Good, The Bad, The Weird is insanely fun. The guy certainly knows how to do to large scale action. This is one that'll probably end up finding its target audience on DVD. I do also agree with Brett in regards to Bullet to the Head, which is offering the same old school thrills. Even if reviews are good I don't see that doing any better than this.

David Mumpower: Schwarzenegger’s return to acting wasn’t exactly due to the demand of the people, either. When he left the governorship of California, he was mired in scandal and facing a ton of media scrutiny. Even now, some people maintain that there is no such thing as bad publicity but this is no longer true in the social media era. At one point, Schwarzenegger was the number one draw in the world. Now, he is a dinosaur trying to recover from all the comet strikes. The weekend results are predictable in this regard.

The shocking stat here is this one. Schwarzenegger received 4,850,157 votes in California in 2006. Weekend estimates indicate 791,112 tickets were sold this weekend. At one point, he was a factor of six more popular in California than he is in the entirety of North America today.


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