Eraser

Is it just me, or is Arnold Schwarzenegger's accent acquiring worse? I think it is, as is his acting power, as intimately as his choice of films to star in. This time it's Eraser, a big-budget, small-plot, passable feature that continues the testosterone-infused series that Arnie's been working on since Pumping Iron.


It's the cheeseball role to end all cheeseball roles: John Kruger (Arnie) deeds for the Witness Relocation Program as an "identity eraser," and he answers to no one (sorta). His charge is Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), an executive with "Cyrez," wHO discovers that her company is selling next propagation weapons to Russkie terrorists. The FBI uses her just to get the goods on Cyrez, and it's up to Arnie to economise her enshroud from the bad guys, which includes turncoat fellow eraser Robert Deguerin (James Caan).


Meanwhile, Arnie does about every unintelligent thing possible in purchase order to (a) inadvertently lead-in the bad guys to Lee, (b) get in lots of fights, (c) blow up stuff, and (d) break up jokes. All of this works with varying success. In the film, Arnold comes cancelled as a complete cretin who couldn't protect his lunch money without blurting out where it is. It's a good thing he's so tough, otherwise it'd be a short film so. Even Arnold's jokes here are of the lowest quality even, sadly.


It's sad, really, because everyone but the headliner is pretty good. Williams proves herself as equal to of retention her own against the big guy cable, and Robert Pastorelli's Mafioso-in-protection all only steals the show. We're also treated to some bad-ass special effects (ILM's faker-than-fake digital crocodiles not withstanding), courtesy of some of the most wicked weapons on screen. (Actually, the best effect is the replacement of all mention/viewing of the discussion "Cyrex" with "Cyrez" to avoid big lawsuits from the similarly-named chip manufacturer.)


Overall, the celluloid delves into complete and utter ridiculousness in the plot domain, and at the same time is totally predictable -- in fact, big chunks of it are lifted right out of True Lies. Throw on a dumb ending... and the rest you toilet just efface.