Before I get into what a terrible movie “Collateral Damage” was, I have something I need to say: If I’m in the mood for an old-school action flick, the Slys, the Jean-Claudes and the Seagals of the industry just aren’t going to cut it. I need the one and only Ah-nuld. The Austrian-born Schwarzenegger is, at least in the fictional film-world, our very own superhero.

That being said, I am rarely in the mood for an old-school action flick. I find them repetitive and boring. “Collateral Damage” is no different.

Schwarzenegger plays Gordon Brewer, a firefighter whose wife and son are killed when a Colombian terrorist known as The Wolf (Cliff Curtis) sets off a bomb in Los Angeles. Gordon, after an appropriate five minutes of grieving, decides that he’s going to Colombia to single-handedly bring The Wolf to justice.

As soon as Brewer steps foot in Colombia, though, he’s on the run. The reason? Well, he’s taking a bus into the city and some Colombian government types have set up a roadblock so they can search for guerrillas. Why this would cause Brewer to take off running is one of those movie anomalies that makes no sense, at first. We soon learn why he ran, though. If he had stayed on the bus, he wouldn’t have been able to be chased through a jungle where he dives off a cliff into a river, then plunges down a massive waterfall. See, it all makes sense.

Once he’s dried off, he finds his way into town where he promptly gets arrested for being an illegal alien. This leads to a wonderful scene in prison where a Canadian prisoner is able to tell Brewer is an American, even though he isn’t told as much. Now, maybe my suspension of disbelief needs some tweaking, but the guy’s got an Austrian accent! Oh well. Who am I to criticize? Maybe all the Americans who visit Canada have Austrian accents. Yep, I’m sure that’s it.

Soon, Brewer is out of prison and getting closer to finding The Wolf. Before he can, though, John Leguizamo needs to make an appearance. He plays Felix, who is producing massive amounts of cocaine. Once you’ve seen the movie, you can decide why the whole Felix subplot was included. Was it, a) To stereotype Colombians as drug dealers; b) To kill time between explosions or c) Someone owed Leguizamo money?

Eventually, Brewer finds The Wolf, but ends up getting himself captured. This, of course, is so The Wolf can have his obligatory “I’m a terrorist, but I’ve got a good reason and you Americans are naive” speech.

By the time Brewer escapes, The Wolf is already on his way to Washington to plant another bomb. However, The Wolf’s wife has agreed to help Brewer stop him, so there just might be enough time.

The studio pushed the release of “Collateral Damage” back after the Sept. 11 attacks, because of the terrorist theme. They said they were being sympathetic, but I don’t buy it. They were worried about the bottom line. The almighty dollar. If a person was affected by the attacks to the point where they didn’t want to see a fictional movie about terrorism in September, they aren’t going to want to see one now. Plain and simple. But this way the studio doesn’t look insensitive.

This movie was made before terrorism became something we truly had to face as a reality. It’s no different than Indiana Jones fighting Nazis. Terrorists make good bad guys. They’re easy to hate.

I really hope this movie doesn’t suffer because of Sept. 11. No, it deserves to suffer because it’s a boring, pointless movie with the only apparent theme being that explosions are cool.