In the ’90s, action movies were everywhere, and action stars ruled the silver screen. Mel Gibson, Steven Segal, Sylvester Stallon, Jean-Claude Van Damne, and Arnold Schwarzenegger were all household names. You could not go to a theater and not find at least one action movie playing. Eraser was one of those movies. Released in 1996, it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Vanessa Williams. Now, the eraser is back in Eraser Reborn.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Warning: There may be spoilers ahead.
Eraser Reborn Cast
| Starring | Character |
| Dominic Sherwood | Mason Pollard |
| Jacky Lai | Rina Kimura |
| McKinley Belcher III | Paul Whitlock |
| Eddie Ramos | Sugar Jax |
| Nathan Castle | Marcos Sari |
| Thembikile Komani | Zama |
| Kai Luke Brummer | Deputy Oltcheck |
| Soyama Mbashe | Felicia Galloway |
Eraser Reborn follows U.S. Marshal Mason Pollard, who, like his 1996 Eraser counterpart John Kruger, specializes in “erasing” the “existence” of high-value witnesses. The game has changed with the technological advances of the last 25 years. Pollard is assigned to Rina Kimura, a crime boss’ wife who has decided to turn her husband in. As Pollard attempts to “erase” Kimura, a team of assassins is pursuing them. Pollard eventually discovers that his trusted friend has betrayed him and the program.
Eraser Reborn starts strong, and the character development flows well. The cinematography was excellent, and the editing was also very well done. The soundtrack is typical action movie fodder with heavy bass that gets the room thumping. The sound designers did an excellent job of conveying feeling through the soundtrack and keeping the movie’s pace going.
One thing I appreciated, and why I say this is an improvement, is the lack of one-liners from Pollard. As we all know, Schwarzenegger movies always had Arnold delivering humourous one-liners that sometimes worked, but most times didn’t. “I’ll be back” is iconic, but most of his one-liners in Eraser were cringe-worthy. But I digress.
Eraser Reborn isn’t an Oscar-worthy film, but it is fun and free from political ideology, which is creeping into just about all media these days. Dominic Sherwood’s performance was nothing to write home about. He did okay; he played the typical action hero guy, though I appreciate the writers balancing the character and not making him super invincible.
The supporting cast was good, all fairly even in their performances, except for McKinley Belcher III, who plays Paul Whitlock, Pollard’s good friend. Belcher III turned in the film’s best performance and reminded me of a young Avery Brooks, who I think is an outstanding actor. I’ll be looking for more films with him in them.
The writing was a little lazy, and the writers nearly copied some scenes verbatim from the original movie. Eraser Reborn is being sold as a continuation of the original film, so seeing them recycle some of the scenes here was offputting. I watched Eraser again before watching Eraser Reborn to get a feel for the new version.
The original film has been called a “blockbuster,” and it had a US$100,000,000 budget. It eventually grossed US$242,295,562 worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. While the dollar amount puts the original film in blockbuster status, it was far from being that great. Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 39% for the original movie, and I agree with that score.
Overall, Eraser Reborn is better than the original. It still has issues like lazy writing, average performances, and cliche action scenes, but it’s a fun watch, especially if you want to escape from real life. This movie scores 7 out of 10. Be sure to check out our review of Terror on the Prairie!
