Touches You

the audience applauded

Good concept, poorly executed.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Dumb. Dumb. and more Dumb. Stallone plays a barely coherent cop who has to protect the equally incoherent Bridgette Neilsen from a crazed gang. Enough ammo is fired off int his movie to fight the Normandy invasion. The acting is barely there and the story ... well there isn't much of one.

It's sad that Cobra is so darn violent, because it has a lot of good stuff in it, stuff like:1. How Cobra feels like something out of an old pulp magazine, like The Spider. The tough vigilante gunslinger dressed in black, a secret society of villains that are pure evil, helpless police, a super-fast car, a damsel in distress. It's a low budget movie that feels so big and epic. "Cobra" even sounds like the title of a pulp magazine. If you changed a few things, this could have been a pretty good Spider movie.2. The villains are scary, and believable. A secret society based on Darwinian principles. One can easily imagine a group of psychopaths inspired by someone like Richard Dawkins or Peter Singer kill off of people they deem "weak". And Brian Thompson is great as the boss. Almost makes me forget his role in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.3. Robert Tepper's music sets the mood.4. Stallone as Cobra. He's a tough guy with a heart of gold. It's amazing that they didn't make more movies about this character. The matchstick, the sunglasses...he's so cool and tough that it becomes hilarious.5. Surprisingly, no unnecessary sex scenes/nudity. There is, however, some disturbing references to sexual violence, and the movie is pretty violent and gritty. I know, I know...it's an action movie where Rambo fights a gang of dangerous serial killers, but still. It is possible to make dark and gritty movies without all of the gory violence. And then there's the language. Had they toned it down a bit, I would have liked it much better.But, for all it's faults, I'll admit that Cobra still is a pretty exciting movie. A combination of pulse pounding action and chilling horror. If you like pulp magazines, you will probably like Cobra. And if you like Cobra, maybe you should check out some pulps?

Cobra has had the reputation of being a Dirty Harry rip-off, and in many ways it is. However, this is still an entertaining action movie that doesn't deserve the flack it received. I agree that the movie is imperfect and it does look dated, but nonetheless it is a fun movie. Director George P. Cosmatos, who is most famous for directing Rambo First Blood Part II and Tombstone, directs, and he knows how to make effective mindless movies that are fun. I really enjoyed this film, and though it's a clichéd affair, it's quite good in its own right. If you love 1980's action films that are low budget, this is a perfect film to enjoy. The performances are decent at best, but the action is what keeps you involved. The plot does suffer, but what do you expect from a low budget action feature? This is meant to be a popcorn flick, nothing more, and it succeeds at it very well. There were better films than Cobra during the 80's, especially the bigger productions such as Die Hard, but if you enjoy these films, then give it a shot. I found Cobra to be a flawed film with an average script, but it delivered in its action content, and if you're an action film fan, that's all that matters. I thought that Sylvester Stallone's performance was pretty good considering that this is such an overlooked film. He has had better roles, but in Cobra he's perfect for the part and it's hard to imagine someone else in the role. Like I said, this is a good movie that is flawed, but it more than makes up for the lacking material with its tense action. The film is cheesy at times, but it's what makes it all enjoyable.

1986: the battle for '80s action hero supremacy rages on, Sylvester Stallone countering Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando (1985) with Cobra, a violent, ego-stroking exercise in machismo in which the Italian Stallion stars as hard-boiled, no-nonsense cop Marion Cobretti, whose policing methods make Dirty Harry look like a liberal by comparison.Clad in trench-coat and bun-hugging jeans, and wearing aviator shades while chewing a matchstick, cool-as-a-cucumber Cobretti is called in to do the jobs considered too dangerous for the other cops, which usually means gunning down armed psychos. This makes him the perfect man to protect fashion model Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen), who is the only person who can identify the leader of a gang of crazed killers that have been terrorising Los Angeles.Just about as '80s as an action flick can get, this film is full of embarrassing macho posturing from its star, and lots of expensive set-pieces in which cars get trashed, stuff blows up, and people are riddled with bullets, all accompanied by a nasty soundtrack of forgettable pop/rock songs. Cobretti saunters through the death and destruction suffering nary a scratch while offing countless bad guys with ease, pausing occasionally to mumble the obligatory witty one-liners (although none of them are very memorable on this occasion).Giving able support are Andrew Robinson as Cobretti's asshole colleague Detective Monte and Reni Santoni as gruff police boss Sergeant Tony Gonzales (both of whom were in Dirty Harry—coincidence? I think not). At the other end of the acting scale we have Brian Thompson as Night Slasher, who is truly awful, and Nielsen, who is as wooden as always, but who was cast for her looks and her willingness to sleep with the star (unsurprisingly, her mid-'80s career boost was as short-lived as her relationship with Sly).