Review: New Schwarzenegger 'Damaged' goods
February 7, 2002 Posted: 4:17 PM EST (2117 GMT)

(CNN) --
"..The latest Arnold Schwarzenegger film, "Collateral Damage," received millions of dollars in free publicity when its release was postponed after the September 11 terrorist attacks -- an ironic happenstance which undoubtedly will heighten the curiosity surrounding this film.

After all, at a time when many Americans want revenge against the frustratingly elusive Osama bin Laden, it can be very appealing to watch Arnold track down the bad guy, beat him to a pulp, kill him (or her) at least three times, and then, in an orgasmic wave of "and justice for all," we get to slam our buttered-popcorn-encrusted hands together and cheer as the credits roll.

There's just one itty-bitty little problem. The movie stinks.

Lately, Schwarzenegger has gotten it into his head that he can play an "everyman" on screen. That thespian archetype was created by the likes of Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart, and now owned by actors such as Tom Hanks and Billy Bob Thornton.

Arnold is many things: a movie star, a bodybuilding icon, a rich and powerful role model for millions. But he's not a skilled, subtle actor, and in order to pull off being an everyman, you've got to know how to act. Not only can Arnold not act, he's having trouble carrying films -- his last two movies, 1999's "End of Days" and 2000's "The 6th Day," tanked at the box office with Arnold trying to be a more or less regular guy.

Horrific comparisons

Without September 11, "Collateral Damage" would have been just another bad movie. Now it's a bad, embarrassing movie.

Fairly or unfairly, the similarities between celluloid and real life have brought the inevitable comparisons. The fact is that "Collateral Damage" is painfully, wantonly, hauntingly horrific from beginning to end, and its association with a truly painful, haunting and horrific event only amplifies that.

Schwarzenegger plays Gordy Brewer, a Los Angeles fireman with a loving wife and adoring son. In a flash, a terrorist bomb kills his family, and Gordy goes on a rampage of revenge. A Colombian terrorist, "El Lobo" (The Wolf), played by Cliff Curtis, is on a bloody mission to bring his country's war against drug lords to the United States, an action he hopes will force the U.S. military out of his country. To El Lobo, the fact that his campaign kills Brewer's family is merely a by-product of war -- collateral damage...."