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By Fred Topel

Fox brought two classic Arnold movies out on Blu Ray in April.

Predator and Commando are great pure action movies, with simple bad guys for Arnold to fight. Showing their age, however, kind of represents the care that needs to be taken for Blu Ray catalog releases.

Predator is grainy and shaky, but it's solid. The movie is 20 years old, so it looks like the best possible 20-year-old preservation without totally remastering the film. There are some hazy interior lights, affecting some of the jungle mist too, but it's mostly clear.

The biggest effect of the high definition transfer is in detailing the rippling muscles and glistening sweat of these jungle musclemen. What? I'm just analyzing the details of the Blu Ray transfer. That's not weird.

There are a few sharp colors: Arnold's red polo shirt in the beginning and some of the greens in the foreground but no so much further back in the depth of field. There are deep blacks in some of the nighttime shots. Fire is usually bright, but some of it is just bleh. The blood of skinned bodies is bright, especially set against the camouflage uniforms in the jungle.

Actually, it may be because of the fact that most of the film is camouflage that there is little noticeable hi-def detail. Certain shots hide the grain more, so it's about half and half. Frames full of foliage or character close-ups are good, wider shots are grainy.

The predator is not nearly as shiny here as he is in Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem. The shiniest thing in this is a motherf***in' snake slithering through the motherf***in' jungle. There's some shiny dried blood on a leaf too.

Some shots look more like a soundstage jungle. Perhaps that is the clarity of Blu Ray revealing the antiquated filmmaking, or maybe it's just me and I'm totally wrong and it was all location.

A few years older, Commando is about the same. It's solid, just not retouched to be fully awesome Blu Ray. The rippling sweaty muscles are still here, because I'm just analyzing the details of high def. What's your problem?

More of Commando looks grainy than Predator. The daylight of Matrix's forest home and the island of the climax are pretty grainy. Interiors are even worse like the airplane, the mall and the motel. When the action picks up, the fast moves hide it, so that's an interesting phenomenon. Mainly though, film is grain, so when they transfer these old movies into hi-def, the grain is going to become even higher definition grain.

Commando is a shinier film than Predator. Everything from his axe to helicopters to cars glint the light off them. There are some good details in dirt, sand and pebbles, and the colors of those cars are deep. Fire is bright and the nighttime blacks actually look the best, with only small portions of the scene lit up.

Actually, the best looking shot in Commando is the cockpit of the plane they steal. It is an obvious composite shot and all the elements are totally clear. Also, Bill Paxton's radar scene looks clear and has a nice red tint.

There are no extras on either Blu Ray, but if you've seen the DVDs, you know you don't need them. Predator had some extra shots of Arnold sliding through the mud and Commando had a few snippets, plus an EPK of the actors and filmmakers crediting themselves with being self-referential after the fact. This appears to be the theatrical cut of Commano. Sorry to those of you who prefer the three seconds longer version.