20 Rounds of Schwarzenegger vs Stallone (part two)

After a sweaty and brutal first half, the Austrian Oak was beating the Italian Stallion by two clear points.  But how will the result swing after the remaining ten rounds?  Let’s get red-eeeeeeee to… (etc.)

11. Twins (1988) vs Tango & Cash (1989)

As high concepts go, Twins’ is straight out of a script brainstorming meeting; they almost certainly came up with the poster before figuring out a story.  What we ended up with offers some decent laughs and is some of Arnie’s best acting work (ahem).  Tango & Cash, however, is definitely the superior buddy movie.  As rival L.A. cops forced to team up to clear their names after they’re both framed for murder by a malevolent villain (I’m excited about the film’s existence just writing that plot summary!), Stallone in glasses and a brash Kurt Russell play off each other superbly, with wisecrack following wisecrack all the way up to a wonderfully cheesy freeze-frame high-five ending.  Yeah!

Winner: Sly

12. Total Recall (1990) vs Rocky V (1990)

What do you get when you combine a Philip K. Dick story with Arnie, Paul Verhoeven, Alien co-creator Dan O’Bannon and a huge SFX budget?  You get Total Recall, a batshit-crazy heap of interplanetary identity crisis mayhem, a gleefully sleazy romp with the best ultra-violence this side of  Robocop and more bone-breaking than a Steven Seagal marathon.  The penultimate entry in Stallone’s boxing saga is less impressive – the least loved, it breaks the formula to focus on odious protégé Tommy Gunn and ended up killing the franchise for more than a decade.  Plus it lacks any three-breasted women.

Winner: Arnie

13. Kindergarten Cop (1990) vs Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)

You can understand why Schwarzenegger signed on for his first mega-flop, Last Action Hero (coming up below).  It wasn’t his fault that the pre-Scream audience wasn’t yet ready for postmodern genre dissection; hey, maybe Arnie was a visionary.  But there really is no excuse for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.  Well, maybe Sly thought… no, sorry, there’s nothing.  Kindergarten Cop’s tonal shifts from kiddie fare to gritty thriller do sometimes jar, but Arnold’s second teaming with director Ivan Reitman manages to mine its fish-out-of-water concept for sufficient laughs whilst keeping its star’s key audience happy and leaving his dignity intact.  That’s how it’s done, Sylvester – not by wearing a giant nappy.

Winner: Arnie

14. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) vs Cliffhanger (1992)

And Schwarzenegger scores his second hat-trick of the game. T2 was never going to lose to anything, and needs no elaboration.  Oh alright: it manages to not only be compelling from start to finish, but competes in all manner of ‘best movie’ categories: sequel, sci-fi, action, special effects-led, Arnie starrer, James Cameron feature.  This particular result is, however, tainted somewhat, as I have a real soft spot for Cliffhanger.  John Lithgow is the best bad guy since Alan Rickman, there’s some wonderfully sadistic violence – often stylised in slo-mo to capture every last drop of blood on snow – and I will never forget the image of an upside-down Stallone in extreme close-up bellowing, “You’re not gonna diiiiiiie!”

Winner: Arnie

15. Last Action Hero (1993) vs Demolition Man (1993)

By 1993, Stallone had shown he was fallible with early efforts like F.I.S.T. and Paradise Alley failing to build on his Rocky success, not to mention later disasters Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Oscar. Arnie, however, was still on a seemingly never-ending winning streak. Last Action Hero ended it.  The movie may be a total mess, but it’s not as bad as history would have us believe, a lot of its turkey status coming from its failure in comparison to summer box office behemoth Jurassic Park.  Demolition Man is a much more straightforward far-fetched romp – pacey, vaguely satirical, and featuring one of  Sly’s  best one-liners: “You’re gonna regret that for the rest of your life – both seconds of it!”

Winner: Sly

16. True Lies (1994) vs The Specialist (1994)

Safe territory for Schwarzenegger, getting over his disappointment from the previous year by re-teaming with James Cameron for what turned out to be each man’s final successful contribution to the action genre. The Specialist features a bored-looking Sly moping around Miami and occasionally shagging Sharon Stone (it’s an ‘erotic thriller’).  Its only redeemable features are James Woods in full-on sleaze mode and Rod Steiger’s wobbly Cuban accent.

Winner: Arnie

17. Junior (1994) vs Judge Dredd (1995)

Arnie pregnant?  A concept that’s just too high, I’m afraid.  Excessive time is spent with Emma Thompson’s clumsy doctor falling over (groan), Arnie saying things like “My nipples are so sensitive” (yeech), and the disturbing sight of the Terminator going all Mrs Doubtfire in old lady drag (yikes!).  It pains me to announce Judge Dredd as the winner of anything, but here we are.  The best I can say is that it’s an undemanding watch, the lovely Diane Lane co-stars, and Rob Schneider isn’t in every scene.  Oh, and it’s better than Junior.

Winner: Sly

18. Eraser (1996) vs Assassins (1996)

Both these flicks offered evidence of a star entering his career decline. Eraser saw Arnie desperately try to play on the audience’s nostalgia for his heyday by headlining the most 80s movie not to have been made during that decade.  Sly tried a different tact, clutching onto the trajectory of up-and-coming star Antonio Banderas and riding in his slipstream.  A tough one to call, but Eraser edges it for being more fun and featuring some memorable absurdity: Arnie jumping out of a plane without a parachute; James Caan in snivelling overdrive; and the line “You’re luggage!” after our man shoots an alligator.

Winner: Arnie

19. Batman & Robin (1997) vs Daylight (1996)

It’s hard to imagine just what kind of unholy aberration wouldn’t beat legendary stinker Batman & Robin – apart from maybe Batman Forever.  A film that somehow manages to make George Clooney a charisma-free zone, and which put Arnie’s career well and truly in the cooler (sorry).  Daylight, on the other hand, is a perfectly serviceable entry to the mid-90s disaster movie revival.

Winner: Sly

20. End Of Days (1999) vs Copland (1997)

With the millennium looming, both men needed a genuine hit, and again both tried different tactics.  Arnie looked to the past once more, delivering hokum that wouldn’t have looked out of place ten years earlier (although they might have made the special effects look a bit less ropey back in the 80s’ pre-CGI haven).  But this time Sly came out the victor, by surrounding himself with solid thespian talent (De Niro, Keitel, Liotta) and trying to, y’know, actually act. And a bloody decent job he does, too.

Winner: Sly

Final score: 

Schwarzenegger: 11 – 9 Stallone.

So there you have it, indisputable proof that Arnie is more of an action icon than Sly. Now all we need is for him to get some more screen time in The Expendables 2, and for that movie to climax with the two legends facing off once and for all for real. We can only hope!