Temple of Doom Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's been a very long time since I watched Commando, and when it popped up on AMC a few weeks ago, I decided I really needed to hear its steel drum and saxophone theme again. (I really didn't. It was stuck in my head for days after.) Anyway, it had been so long that I had forgotten the ridiculous sidekick of Stewardess Cindy. She enters into the narrative in the silliest way possible (one of the bad guys hits on her, and John Matrix decides that this makes her perfect to assist him), she causes many innocent bystanders to be shot or seriously injured in a shopping mall, and she complains. A lot. Halfway through, it's like they had to come up with a better excuse for her to be there, so she supplies some knowledge about planes, fires a rocket launcher, and then steps in as a stepmom at the end.

Why is she here? Time is too tight for kissing or gratuitous sex, so there was no need for a love interest. She really does nothing that Matrix couldn't have done himself (I mean, shouldn't he know how to fly a sea plane and puzzle out fueling information? Isn't he one of those guys?), and the rocket launcher rescue could have been cut because, come on, Matrix was too badass to really get arrested anyway. It takes up time that he could have been shooting more of Arius' mercenaries in hilarious and gory ways.

I'd really like to nominate her for worst action sidekick ever, except that I'm sure there's far worse out there. I'm not talking about actual sidekicks, like Chewbacca or Samwise Gamgee, but the untrained citizens who get drawn into perilous situations.