Letterboxd — Your life in film

Unfortunately a bland return to the big screen for Arnie, the Last Stand has a decent real-time~ish story, decent characters, decent villains, and a decent turn by Arnold as a small town sheriff. "Decent" is the word, but nothing beyond that.

Probably the biggest waste here is Korean director Kim Jee-Woon, who did the energetic and refreshing "The Good, The Bad, and The Weird." The studio obviously had a heavy hand in reining him in, perhaps wanting to avoid the clunky stylistic choices John Woo brought with him when he was starting in Hollywood. If so it begs the question, why even bother? They should've just gotten a regular jobber as that's what this feels like a product of.

Nothing inordinately bad here and a couple of ok action scenes including a highlight game of cat-and-mouse with two sports cars in a cornfield. But with a smallish budget, a big star looking to make a splash on a return as a leading man, and an outside-the-system new-wave action director, this had the ingredients for a cool and original action vehicle. Too bad it takes the very middle of the road.

Passable actioner starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arteton. Renner has a good turn here as the lead in his own potential-franchise; much more light-hearted than the Bourne series it seems to fit his personality better. Arteton is also solid as his sister, and the two do have a good brother-sister chemistry that doesn't turn incesto-creepy as it could.

Lots of gory violence helps pepper things up, but the plot is strictly by-the-numbers, and both side characters and the villains are very one-dimensional. There's also some decent practical effects, but for all that genre fans seem to crave practical over CG, it shows its limitations here. The troll in this looks like it came from 'The Never Ending Story', not from a 2013 big-budget fantasy action flick.

Overall, watchable and I'm in for the sequel (although it's being rumored to be PG-13, which may take away a lot of the bloody fun), but I'm glad this was a $2 Redbox rental and not a movie-theater watch.