I can't help but agree with each of you.
On one hand, I don't think there's any denying that Cobra is practically the Frankenstein's monster of 80s films. It recycles every action cliché of the period (and seems to invent a few of its own on the fly), is directed by the redoubtable Sylvest- uh...George P. Costmatos, and, not for nothing, is also a Cannon film.
It's thunderously stupid on every level. Every laugh it gets -- and I know it certainly makes me laugh like an idiot -- is unintentional with one exception ("I don't shop here") and there's only the slightest lip-service paid to logic, plausibility, or plot, period.
And yet. Whenever it's on, I can't help but watch it. Its truncated 86 minute running time simply flies by; to this day, I can remember watching a VHS rental as a seven-year-old and thinking, "It's over already?" (Incidentally, I'd love to see the original cut. No doubt more violence, more montages, more "subtle character moments" involving drowning french fries and an unhelpful Andrew Robinson.)
One of my favourite bits: Some obnoxious caricature of a left-wing journalist gets in Cobretti's face about excessive force after he's single-handedly taken down a psycho killer in a hostage situation. You can just feel Stallone seething. They just don't understand that he's the last line of defense against these crazies and their synchronized clinking ax dance troupe!
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