Cobra [Blu-ray][Region Free]

Finally, the full version of this classic action-flick. Since the mid-80s all UK-realeases were missing one sentence during the final showdown. Fortunately for all fans, by now the BBFC have given a green light to the full version which is contained on the BD.

Here are the 10 main reasons why I absolutely love Sly Stallone's Cobra:

1. It's the darkest of Sly's movies, with great atmosphere of dark and hostile city.
2. It's directed by George P. Cosmatos, so you know action scenes are going to be totally unrealistic and totally awesome.
3. It has this unique 80s vibe you won't find in modern movies.
4. It's definitely NOT a movie for kiddies - the thing I can't say about 90% of modern films.
5. The music in it is absolutely awesome.
6. It's stupid, but not in an insulting way (for that, go and see: Transformers 1 & 2, the Hitchhiker remake, almost every single modern action movie).
7. Bridget Nielsen!
8. It has it's own style and it's nothing like other 80s action movies - it's like a crossover of The Terminator, Se7en and Rambo.
9. Has an EPIC climax.
10. It's FUN!

"You're a disease and I'm the cure" snarls Sylvester Stallone in a gravely whisper while dressed like a gun-toting gay strippergram in Cobra, one of the campest and worst looking films of the 80s, and that's saying quite something for the star of Rocky IV. Kicking off with a gun pointed at the audience while Stallone lispths his way through a catalogue of daily "wape and wobbewe" statistics and including much speachifying about BS rules and the judges being on the criminals' side and no shortage of scenes of the evil medya and liberal detectives out to crucify its misunderstood killing machine with a badge, it's a poor man's Dirty Harry that looks more like a cheap Cannon straight-to-video film than a major studio release. Although Cannon godfathers Golan and Globus have producers credits on the film, they had no involvement beyond lending the studio the star, who was then under contract to them.) Marion Cobretti is the kind of cop who drives a classic car, slices pizza with scissors, has a giant photo of Ronald Reagan in his office and has a ready supply of one liners for every psychopath: when one threatens to blow up a supermarket, he simply replies "I don't shop here" before blowing him away. But most of the film sees him protecting the then-Mrs Stallone, Brigitte Nielson in a bad blonde wig and the kind of makeup that makes her look like an inflatable woman, who is being stalked by a cult of poorly defined serial killers dreaming of a New World order of hunters culling the weak. All of which is just an excuse for lots of violence and an ever-escalating body count in the kind of alarmist reactionary fantasy that perversely holds most appeal to the kinds of low lives and gang members the film detests (at the time some theatres had to take on extra security before the word got round and the security men outnumbered the audience).

Most of it is executed with little panache, though the finale where he takes on dozens of bikers who couldn't hit a barn door with wrecking ball has a certain video game appeal and it's always fun to see a crashing car demolish a yacht. It certainly falls short of even the weaker Dirty Harry films it so obviously aspires to despite casting Dirty Harry alumni Reni Santoni, back on partner duties and delivering the best performance, and Andy Robinson, promoted from psychopath to smug by-the-book superior in the hopes that audiences might associate it with something rather better. The more telling casting is David Rasche, Sledge Hammer himself, as a horny photographer, which provides the more apt comparison: this is exactly the kind of film that Sledge would have wet dreams about... Though quite whether he would have included a truly bizarre bit of product placement for Toys-R-Us is debatable.

Whereas previous UK DVD releases have been cut and devoid of extras, the Blu-ray release is uncut and includes the director's commentary that often plays more like an audio description, brief featurette and trailer that were included on the US DVD release.