Cobra (1986)

Tagline: Crime is a disease. Meet the cure.

Curiosity: It came bundled with Tango & Cash. Also, did you know that it’s star/writer Sylvester Stallone’s adaptation of Beverly Hills Cop?

Plot: Marion Cobretti (Stallone) has a ridiculously lame name, so he opts to go by “Cobra.” Dude is a lone wolf cop from the “zombie squad.” He takes the jobs no one wants, man, and he gets results, dammit. He blows away criminals while saying things like “This where the law stops and I start!” But there’s one crook he can’t blow: The Night Slasher (Brian Thompson, Luke from season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!!).

But when TNS leaves a witness (Brigitte Nieslen), Cobra must protect/make-out with her, in the name of street justice!

Thoughts: While I love a few of his movies, I have a tough time embracing Sylvester Stallone. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Rocky series and all, but the guy’s movies reek of calculation, whereas a picture from Dolph Lundgren or Arnold Schwarzenegger will almost definitely come packed with giddy thrills. In Cobra, Stallone goes out of his way to craft a badass character with potential to launch a franchise, and generally fails.

Let’s get this out of the way: I mildly liked Cobra. I was surprised that Nielsen could act, as I only know her really from The Surreal Life (and Rocky 4: Smashin’ Communism!, of course). Ironically, the comedy was strong too, thanks in large part to the banter between Stallone and Reni Santoni as Sergeant Gonzales. They just riff back and forth about food for no reason. Hi-larious!

But all the parts where Stallone tries to make Cobra out to be tougher than Rambo feel over the top, and mind you this was the best decade for movies like that. Cobra dresses all in black. He kills criminals with a minimum of 20 bullets. And he totally doesn’t care about parking restrictions. BAD. ASS.

Thompson, meanwhile, gets saddled with a villain so poorly defined that he was nowhere to go but up. The Night Slasher is apparently part of some sort of ax cult, we never learn what’s up with that. Still, he gets a chunk of lines near the end where he gets to just be all types of crazy/scary, and he kills it.

In fact, that bit of dialogue is probably the only legitimately unnerving moment. Cobra attempts to play like a slasher movie, but it’s completely gore-free. Considering it came out the same year as Aliens, From Beyond, and The Fly, I don’t understand why the film didn’t push for a harder R rating. Hell, the lone sex scene isn’t even a scene; merely a jump cut. Cobra is cartoonishly violent in a way that only eight-year-olds with lenient parents could love.

Reflection: I can’t believe this movie made $188 million in theaters. Anyway, here’s the ending: