4/5 A Good One for Schwarzenegger and Other Action Fans
  by drkhimxz (Freehold, NJ, USA)
One more for the fans who can count on no new ones until the Governor leaves office.....if then. It has what his fans want, plenty of action with the good guys winning, and a decent story of a fireman who seeks revenge for the murder of his wife and child by Colombian terrorists. No doubt it will satisfy action fans with other heroes besides "The Big Guy". Not at all bad.

3/5 Collateral Damage - Blu-ray Info
  by LGANS316 (Tokyo Japan)
Version: U.S.A / Warner / Region Free
VC-1 BD-50 / AACS / Advanced Profile 3
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Running time: 1:48:48
Movie size: 25,280,679,936 bytes
Disc size: 27,719,375,143 bytes
Total bit rate: 30.98 Mbps
Average video bit rate: 21.56 Mbps

Dolby TrueHD Audio English 1719 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1719 kbps / 16-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Italian 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Japanese 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Portuguese 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / Dolby Surround
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / Dolby Surround

Subtitles: English SDH, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Number of chapters: 32

#Audio Commentary with director Andrew Davis
#The Making Of (SD - 15 minutes)
#The Hero In A New Era (SD - 8 minutes)
#Deleted Scenes (SD - 8 minutes)
#Theatrical trailer

2/5 "Damage" to Arnold's Career
  by Mike Schorn (APO, AE United States)
At the time of the release of "Collateral Damage", director Andrew Davis had a pretty good career behind him: between 1985 and 2002, he had done good things for the careers of Chuck Norris (Code of Silence), Steven Seagal (Under Siege), Harrison Ford (The Fugitive), Michael Douglas (A Perfect Murder), and had even directed Tommy Lee Jones to his Oscar. Needless to say, the man knows how to bring out a lot in movie stars, so there were few reservations about his teaming up with the number-one action hero of our time, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Surprisingly enough, the film flopped and threatened to end Schwarzenegger's acting career on a low point before Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines came out. Folks tend to write off the film's lack of success due to the fact of it being released only five months after the real-life terrorist attacks of 9/11, but I consider it a simple matter of Schwarzenegger having played too many characters, having been in too many life-threatening situations, and having acted under too many good directors for Davis to have any kind of moving effect on his style at that point.
Oh, and it's not too great of a movie to begin with.

The story: Gordy Brewer (Schwarzenegger) is a fireman whose family is killed in an explosion orchestrated by Colombian terrorist Claudio Perrini (Cliff Curtis, Sunshine). When the US government fails to dispense justice, Brewer travels to South America to exact personal revenge on the terrorist.

For the most part, the plot is as straightforward as abovementioned, but like many Davis films, it gets political as the film progresses...and this is where I first begin to find fault with the film. Forgive me if I seem less-than-patriotic in this statement, but I am thoroughly tired of the one-dimensional and overgeneralized approach that Hollywood has taken towards terrorism for the past decades: for the most part, "Collateral Damage" is a throwback to the days in which we liked to assume that all terrorism was fueled by blind, unexplained, and unwarranted hatred towards America by faceless devils who hid their horns under berets or turbans. The ideology that American lives are more precious than those of people in foreign countries is strongly enforced here, with only the lamest of attempt of political correctness there to try and balance out the ethics.

As far as action goes, the movie is fairly bland: Schwarzenegger doesn't even fire a gun as he flees from bad guys throughout the jungle and avoids missiles. As a matter of fact, besides throwing a few grenades and engaging in a couple of gritty brawls, he doesn't get in on the action at all, which is limited to run-of-the-mill shootouts and explosions; this qualifies the film as more of a thriller than an action title - something I wish I could have known before purchasing it. Then again, ten minutes into the movie, it didn't really surprise me too much: Schwarzenegger looks much older and greyer than he did as recently as The 6th Day, and were it not for his return to form in "Terminator 3", I would have figured that he was over the hill by the time this film rolled around. Also, there are no witty one-liners or much humor of any kind to fall back on, leaving Schwarzenegger looking less vengeful and more tired than he ever has.

The rest of the cast performs fairly well, though they comprise a less-than-original ensemble. Cliff Curtis is merely decent as your stereotypical Latin military-type, but luckily his prominently-featured wife (Francesca Neri, "Hannibal") is there to cover as a deeper and more complex character. Elias Koteas ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") has an unadmirable role as an underhanded government agent, but John Leguizamo (Executive Decision) and John Turturro (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) have likable parts to keep the movie afloat during their screentime.

I wish there was more to say, but "Collateral Damage" may just be the most toothless Schwarzenegger vehicle ever. I really don't know how the Arnold/Davis team went wrong, but it's almost for sure that fans of The Terminator will not be fans of "Collateral". Schwarzenegger fans will probably already have this as a part of their collection, but non- die-hards should treat this a rental the first time around.

3/5 One of those glass half empty, glass half full Schwarzenegger films
  by Mike (San Jose, CA)
Collateral Damage is basically Arnold's Die Hard...although his character Gordy Brewer is a firefighter, NOT a New York Cop like Bruce Willis' John McClane...so that automatically makes it a different movie, right? A movie with a lone firefighter standing up to terrorists versus a lone police officer standing up to terrorists is hardly the same movie at all, right?

The politics of the movie are ham-fisted and cartoonish, and the release date was delayed due to the events of September 11, 2001. It's essentially a fantasy that preceded actual events, and there was talk of not releasing the film at all...but investors want a return on their investment, so it was released in 2002.

The main problems with this film are:

1). When a movie hinges on a "major plot twist," it makes it difficult to enjoy the movie a second time, because while you're watching the opening credits, you are already dealing with a "spoiler." There's no "payoff"...you got that when you watched it the first time.

2). The "major plot twist" is every bit as ham-fisted as the movie's politics, and if you don't see it coming from a mile away, the chances are excellent that you don't watch many movies.

3). In real life, when the lone firefighter follows you halfway around the world to seek vengeance and thoroughly disrupts your drug dealing operation, you don't toy with him. You pretty much eliminate him within moments of recognizing him. Firefighter Gordy is toyed with again and again and again because if the terrorists didn't toy with him, this would have ended up being a short subject, not a feature film.

4). The plot gimmick of having Schwarzenegger tell the bad guy that he's going to kill him and then having the bad guy ask "When are you going to kill me" or "I thought you said you were going to kill me" (or some other variant) has been used in other Schwarzenegger films, and other action films that were not Schwarzenegger films, so there's a real slap-your-forehead "here we go again" moment when firefighter Gordy informs the bad guy that he's going to kill him.

5). John Leguizamo's character is not believable, and this is far from his finest acting moment.

6). In terms of movie terrorists, if Alan Rickman's "Hans Gruber" from "Die Hard" is a "10" on a "10 Scale," the terrorist husband and wife couple in "Collateral Damage" falls somewhere around 2.5 on a 10 Scale. That's also my rating for the film, but since we can only give 2 or 3 stars, not 2.5, I'm OK with the unintended extra half-star bounce.

You'll find the requisite explosions (and another plot twist in which the husband and wife are incinerated in a fireball while chasing a running lone firefighter Gordy on a motorcycle...WHO KNEW that among his other talents, Schwarzenegger has the ability to outrun motorcycles...OR ARE THEY?)...but this is one of those movies in which the filmmakers played to the cheap seats. It's not exactly a "so bad it's good" movies...it's more on the side of "so bad it's just bad"...but if you like cheesy "Midnight Movie" types of bad movies, this might be right up your alley. My advice is to take the advice of "Otis B. Driftwood" in Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects (Unrated Widescreen Edition): "I set my standards pretty low, so I'm never disappointed."

4/5 Entertaining, As Always, Especially With Francesca Neri
  by Craig Connell (Lockport, NY USA)
Yes, another typical Arnold Schwarnegger film which translates to (a) interesting all the way; (b) very violent; (c) very far-fetched. Here, Arnold is just a plain old fireman but he turns into superhero, doing things only Superman or Batman could accomplish....but it's still fun to watch.

After seeing his wife and kid blown up by Columbian terrorists, Arnold goes after the latter, traveling to the jungles of that South American country and taking them on! In the end, he's in Washington trying to diffuse another terrorist plot. He's amazing. What CAN'T this guy do? Yes, it's ludicrous....but it's not meant to be taken seriously, folks! It's just entertainment for fans of action movies, nothing more.

There is a nice twist at the end of this story and it involves a very intriguing-looking woman, Francesco Neri. I just love that woman's face. She's also in "Hannibal" but I think the rest of her films are Italian. I would like to see more of her work.

There are also some short appearances by two always-entertaining actors, John Turturro and John Leguizimo. Scharwarznegger's action films usually have a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek humor and those two actors help along those lines in this film.

Overall, it's two hours of good escapist fare.