Eraser

He will erase your past to protect your future

ERASER (18)

D: Chuck Russell

Warner Bros. (Arnold Kopelson & Anne Kopelson)

USA 🇺🇸 1996

115 mins

Action/Thriller

W: Tony Puryear & Walon Green

DP: Adam Greenberg

Ed: Michael Tronick

Mus: Alan Silvestri

Arnold Schwarzenegger (US Marshal John Kruger), James Caan (US Marshal Robert DeGuerin), Vanessa Williams (Lee Cullen), James Coburn (Chief Arthur Beller), Robert Pastorelli (Johnny Casteleone), James Cromwell (William Donohue)

Arnie goes back to his roots with Eraser, a formulaic action-thriller which he might have made before he became the quintessential action hero.

He plays a government agent who specialises in faking assassinations of those on the witness protection programme so that they're off the radar for good. He gets involved in a conspiracy whilst protecting one of his clients and ends up getting chased by bad guys with technologically advanced weaponry.

Whilst the new age weapons in the movie are highly inventive, the formula the film follows isn't so original and even the once-imitated pay off lines have become tired and cliched (at one point, Schwarzenegger shoots an alligator and utters "You're luggage.")

Entertaining enough for it's duration, but a disappointing comparison to some of his better films like The Terminator or Predator. The majority of the visual effects even look second rate and it doesn't quite set the pulse racing like his earlier blockbusters.

5/10