“You’re luggage!”

Justin’s rating: I bet he loved to erase all the chalkboards in school too

Justin’s review: If there’s one thing that movie critics absolutely love, it’s a title of a disappointing movie that can be turned against it ironically. So maybe don’t call your film Eraser if you want people to remember your film afterward? Heck, I often forget that this happened, and it made like $242 million in the summer of ’96.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was about to start coasting into poor movie roles, but I think this was a good fit for him. He plays Kruger, a US Marshal who helps people disappear into witness protection. The latest of these is Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), who stumbles upon a plot involving illegal sales of “mag pulse rifles.”

And since we know how movies go, if there’s a good guy working for law enforcement and a conspiracy is uncovered, that good guy is going to get double-crossed by all his former friends in his department. That never not happens. Especially when you have James Caan, James Cromwell, and James Coburn in your roster.

Wait, are all Jameses automatic turncoats? That explains so much.

This turns into your standard action movie escort quest, the kind that Schwarzenegger could probably do in his sleep. Protect the girl, shoot some guns, say a thematically appropriate quip when someone dies gruesomely. That worked pretty well in the ’80s, but by the time this came out, I think audiences needed a little more.

The one angle this movie has is the use of these scifi rail guns that can see through walls with x-ray vision, shoot through anything, and sound all thwippy-thwippy. They kind of look like chunky super-soakers, but they’re pretty cool in practice. I mean, they better be, they’re all Eraser has, and it knows that. Well, it’s got the alligator scene, which should’ve gotten some kind of Academy Award for Unnecessary Use of CGI in a ’90s Flick, and perhaps the only movie plot where the mafia are the good guys. But the EM rifles are all that anyone remembers here.

Eventually Kruger gets two of these super-powered guns and has way too much fun laying waste to the entire planet. This comes on top of a few nice setpieces and stunts, such as one on a plane and one in a zoo, which does give some flavor — if not substance — of old-school Arnold. The Alan Silvestri score helps to pump in some excitement as well.

Eraser’s never enjoyed a second lease on life the way many ’90s action flicks have. That’s a bit of a shame, because while it’s not some masterpiece or anything, it’s a pretty solid outing that doesn’t deserve to be… eradicated. Wait, crap! Is it too late to say “erased?” Shoot.

Intermission!

• Believe it or not, there was a sequel-in-name-only called Eraser: Reborn in 2022.
• “Don’t move, you’re dead.”
• Nothing like hauling a couple corpses around into suburbia… and then shooting a couple more corpses on the front lawn
• Back when computers required robots to spin huge arms to access data
• Wireframe models! Mini-CDs! In 1996! How high-tech!
• The rail guns are pretty cool, all things considered. The visuals are the most interesting that any scifi gun’s been in a long time.
• The bomb that shoots, what, drill bits? What’s that about?
• Nothing like a pager as cutting edge tech in 1996!
• “I work alone, you know that.”
• The suiting up scene!
• Knife through a door is a pretty boss move
• “A-plus kid.”
• Ripping a plane door open mid-flight makes for a nice windstorm
• Using a plane to take out a parachute is a new one
• “Where is this?” “Earth. Welcome.”
• Alligators will happily eat and kill anyone the second they’re out of their cages
• That’s a very aggressive medical response
• I never understood why shooting an electronic lock would automatically open when you shoot it instead of becoming even MORE locked
• Human shields turn into human bombs so quickly
• Where does this company store its bulletproof crash doors in the ceiling?
• “Nobody screws with the Union.”