Now that the Governator has been relinguished of his duties, it’s time for Arnold Schwarzenegger to get back to what he’s good at: trying badly to act. Does he even change his facial expression throughout the entirety of Commando? While no one cared in 1985, Arnie seems a little obsolete these days. Which is why he is making two huge missteps.

The first is that Arnie is set to return as the iconic Terminator. He appeared in the first three movies, his likeness turned up in Terminator: Salvation, and now according to 24 Frames his agents are shopping around a package for a fifth film that would include the king of meatheads. Extending a franchise beyond its welcome is nothing new in Hollywood, but what’s even more depressing is that it’s not being handed to some new talent to revitalise the spent story. No, instead Justin Lin is attached as director. Yes, the man between the moronic The Fast and the Furious sequels 3-5, the fifth (written by a 5-year old, it seems) due out this week. It will without doubt make a lot of money, and sadly that qualifies a hack director to take on what was once a great duo of films. Let’s just say there’s not much hope for the Terminated and the Untardy.

His other project is to appear as a comic-book superhero known as the Governator, developed as a comic and animated series by Marvel maestro Stan Lee. When the subject of a jokes gets in on it, you know it’s not going to be funny. Nor is it clever to develop a nickname into an entire series. Maybe Arnie does belong in politics after all.

Ah yes…the great old action movies of the 1980s.  Rambo, Rocky, the Terminator…so many of our greats emerged from the eighties, and you can add one more to the list which came our way from the French. Lions Gate sent me a copy of their recent DVD rerelease, The Professional, and just in case you’re wondering, sadly, no…Leon has nothing to do with this one.

The Professional follows French master spy Joss Beaumont (French action great Jean-Paul Belmondo), sent to assassinate an African dictator. When the assignment fails, Beaumont is imprisoned as a gesture of international good will. But Beaumont escapes and heads back for Paris, bound and determined to finish the job and kill the dictator. But the politics have changed, and the French government isn’t interested in killing the dictator any more, so now, Joss Beaumont is public enemy number one.  Can the French find their top agent before he finishes a job the government would rather he didn’t finish?

The Professional is a strange sort of action film that doesn’t have a whole lot of action in it, but rather focuses more on foreboding.  Sure, there will be some gunfire here, and more than a few narrow escapes, but most of the movie will be spent plotting, scheming, and reacting to other people’s plots and schemes.

In fact, as action movies go, it’s really rather slow.  I’m not saying it’s bad, necessarily–there are some laughs in here, along with some pretty nice action scenes.  But the overall pacing is a little on the slow side.  In fact, the first half of the movie–I didn’t keep an exact count so it’s a bit of an estimate–there were less than thirty shots fired.  Seriously, not a lot of caps got busted, and I personally consider that a substantial problem when it comes to action movies.

But still, there’s some enjoyment to be had here–in all honesty, it might even be a pretty good date movie.  There’s a little romance in here, just a bit of action, and enough skullduggery for three movies.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, recovered from the laugh riot it took last night, is in a good enough position now to declare The Professional a six out of ten. It’s a little too slow to be an action movie, but it’ll still have plenty of good moments to it. There’s comedy and romance, but it’s a bit short on the action.

Basing it on the setting from the trailer, the Mutant Chronicles seem to be picking off from the same setting that The Terminator has established. A movie that takes place in the future, this film seems similar to most sci-fi films we have seen to date.

Directed by Simon Hunter under Magnolia Pictures, the story is about a machine that came from outer space with the purpose of changing men into mutants. However, a hero defeated the device and a great seal was laid over The Machine.

In 2707, the depleted world is ruled by four Corporations: Mishima, Bauhaus, Capitol and Imperial all of whom were in constant war. During a battle between Capitol and Bauhaus, the great seal is broken and The Machine works again transforming soldiers and civilians in hordes of mutants. A small part of the population escapes to Mars, leaving millions of people behind. The man of faith and leader of an ancient brotherhood Brother Samuel is a believer of God and the Chronicles, a bible about the mutants.

With the city under siege of the mutants, he visits the Corporations’ leader Constantine asking for an aircraft and twenty men for a suicide mission to destroy The Machine, planting a bomb and a detonator following the knowledge of the Chronicles. He recruits the tough Major ‘Mitch’ Hunter; the Bauhaus Lieutenant Maximillian von Steiner; the keeper of the Chronicles Severian that is under a vow of silence; the gorgeous and lethal Corporal Valerie Duval; Corporal Juba Kim Wu; Captain John McGuire; and Corporal Jesus ‘El Jesus’ de Barrera. Together they become the last hope of Earth against the evil mutants.

Release date: April 24, 2009