Mark L. Lester
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Stranger Things (2016)
Directed by David Champion
influenced by Firestarter (1984), Commando (1985)
Themes Visuals Characters Plot
Stephen King novels/films – Stand By Me, Firestarter and IT…
…which lets him rip with period-piece elements, Commando-style action sequences in the Upside Down featuring El and Hopper…
Eleven's initially reluctant ability to use her mad mental powers during times of stress/anger echoed her Stephen King-sired sisters.
The series takes seemingly everything to which Steven Spielberg and Stephen King have signed their respective names, particularly E.T., Poltergeist, The Goonies, Firestarter, The Talisman, It, and The Langoliers…
There’s a superpowered girl, straight out of “Firestarter.”
You’d have to be blind to miss blatant homages to E.T., Poltergeist and Firestarter…
It’s a simpler, more disposable item, a fitfully funny buddy vehicle for two New Girl stars in the vein of 1986’s Armed and Dangerous.
Beyond that, "Extraction" is a pretty numbing affair, reminiscent of early Arnold Schwarzenegger movies ("Commando" comes to mind), with a pinch of "Man on Fire."
George P. Cosmatos (l'auteur du Rambo: First Blood Part II) is as much of a point of reference as Boorman's Emerald Forest and Herzog; the majestically ripped main bad-guy (Raoul Trujillo) could be patterned on Vernon Wells in The Road Warrior (or in Commando), the second-string rotter (Rodolfo Palacios) might be Billy Drago, the balls-eating bit (and the subsequent burning-balls bit) are from Porky's, perhaps.
It's not quite ridiculous enough to be truly great like a "Commando" or a "Red Dawn," but it can stand on its own feet and make you want see another one, assuming you're the kind of person who wanted to see this one.
Harkening back to some 1980s classics such as Predator, Commando and Rambo, the film feels old — but old in a good way, where special effects are live-action stunts and the material is treated seriously with a touch of wryness.
The major studios, with big budgets and movie star mojo, jumped on the action wagon long after it had established a stranglehold on the movie-going habits of the decade (Lethal Weapon,1987; Aliens, 1986; Robocop, 1987; Commando,1985).
Viewers who remember the extrasensory kids of Stephen King’s Firestarter or Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind will shiver at the setup, pitched between aching parental worry and carefully deployed special effects that fire the imagination.
And John Carpenter's grown-up Starman, and Mark L. Lester's Firestarter, a movie based on a Stephen King novel about parents on the run with their pyrokinetic child (9-year-old Drew Barrymore).
There’s a lot of ways Doctor Sleep could have gone horribly wrong by having a young girl as its co-lead, but when you remember the likes of Drew Barrymore in Firestarter and even Danny Lloyd, you realize this actress had some enormous shoes to fill, but she delivers on all that’s needed to make Abra as interesting as the others.
…one-upped both screen versions of Stephen King’s Firestarter in just how to do a sci-fi horror about a young girl with escalating psychic powers…
Pearce ( The King’s Speech ) channels some of the great action stars of the past – Bruce Willis’ John McClane from Die Hard , Mel Gibson’s Riggs from Lethal Weapon and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s John Matrix from Commando – in crafting Snow, an instantly likeable lead who has that ‘I wish I was as cool as this guy doing anything’ charisma.
This is hammered home in unconventional ways, particularly with regard to Sharon’s arc; her friendship with a co-worker, Carol – played by Rae Dawn Chong, who served best as the hilarious comic relief in Arnie’s Commando almost thirty years ago – might seem especially obvious, but it unequivocally works.
Sharon's officemate Carol (Rae Dawn Chong, "Commando," "Cyrus") tries to dispel her anxieties that she's being made the butt of a joke and encourages her to be open to the romantic possibilities but anyone should be able to figure out what's really going on here too.
It’s easy to overlook things like that, except that Air leans so heavily on its soundtrack of ‘80s tunes – thanks to ubermensch Brett Arnold for the tip that Affleck also used bits from the soundtracks of 1984 films Body Double and Firestarter – that it sometimes threatens to overpower all the fantastic performances.
The second half of Looper is part The Terminator, part Stephen King’s Firestarter.
¿Quién no recuerda títulos como Desaparecido en combate (Joseph Zito, 1984), Commando (Mark L. Lester, 1985) o Cobra, el brazo fuerte de la ley (George Pan Cosmatos, 1986)?
After graduating from B-level action blow-outs like Commando and Raw Deal to the likes of Total Recall and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the 1996 action throwback Eraser felt and played like a big budget variation on the kinds of films that propelled Schwarzenegger to stardom in the first place.
These films were legendary, from Rambo (1982) to Commando (1985) and Lethal Weapon (1987), Cobra (1986) and Action Jackson (1988), and, of course, Predator.
Not until I saw Taken (2008) and realized it was the redux of Commando (1985) that I always knew I wanted.
The family element (with Neve Campbell as Will's wife) is key, providing the rationale for Will -- the latest version of the right guy in the wrong place -- to engage in a series of death-defying feats, in much the way Arnold Schwarzenegger hit the kill (and kill and kill) switch when his daughter was kidnapped in "Commando."
Leave any “Commando” remakes to Jason Momoa.
Take out the shaky cam and add in a one-liner or two and Rae Dawn Chong, you basically have Commando.
At its best, the film plays like Stallone comrade Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando if Alyssa Milano hadn't been kidnapped--just a tree trunk and his daughter trying to enjoy simple country pleasures without any vendettas getting in the way.