Rambo
July 11th 2008 01:38
It’s been twenty years since the bombastic Rambo III, and twenty-six years since a melancholic John J. Rambo, troubled Nam veteran, first strolled into Hope, WA, looking for somewhere to eat and rest his weary head, and was confronted by redneck Sheriff Teasle.
The present: John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is middle-aged (Sly is 61 to be precise!) and has retreated to a small Thai village where he works capturing snakes for local entertainers and ferrying people and cargo in his rustic boat. When a group of Christian missionaries request his services to take them into war-torn Burma he refuses, but is later convinced by missionary Sarah Miller (Julie Benz).
Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo
Julie Benz as Sarah Miller
Rambo ferries the mercenaries into the heart of darkness
The killing fields of Burma
Rambo about to tear the throat out of an enemy soldier
You want a big bomb? Try this tallboy on for size!
Lewis (Graham McTavish) takes it like a man
Stallone has turned into an ugly veined son-of-a-bitch, playing the character as hard as the hot metal he hammers in his metaphoric blacksmith world. There’s irony to be found in contrasting Rambo against Stallone’s Rocky Balboa (which came out prior). One comes full circle in the good fight for personal identity, while the other comes full circle in the bad fight for humanity.
Rambo plays hardnose with the big guns
My preferred movie title
I'm not gonna bother with a softcore trailer, here's five minutes of the final battle in all it's graphic gory glory:
| 133 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Ick.
Now I remember why I can't stand Rambo.
Definitely deserves the R rating.
Rambo films despite it gore sanitize war down to a avenger plugging some really stupid baddies. They just ran into the bullets.
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
This one basks in the atrocities of war, wallows in violent retribution as a portrait of soulless futility not to be admired but mourned.
Watching the extras it turns out Stallone really did handle live cobras in the film. Interesting that many of the villians in the film are portrayed by real life Burmese revolutionaries.
Comment by D. Armenta
The Florida Keys and Everglades
The Black Sheep Chronicles
What constitutes bad manners?
The male mystique
Debate Fan
L.A.M.P.
Couldn't have said it any better myself.
Excellent review, Bryn.
Comment by mr_tza
Comment by Bethany
There was an interview done with Stallone that wasn't too long ago- whenever they were drumming up press for the release- and one of the questions he was asked was why they didn't use America's contemporary enemies as they had done in the past, in this case the Taliban. Rambo 2 featured Vietnam and 3 showcased Afghanistan.
Stallone's answer was (and I'm paraphrasing here) was: "I don't think it's a good idea to have Rambo go out and drag Osama bin Laden into the oval office, saying 'here you go'. That's very disrespectful to our troops. But the thing in Burma is really going on, and we wanted to high-light that."
I don't remember the rest of the review, and if I weren't so damned tired I'd google it and look it up, but I thought that was an interesting tid bit of information. (It does lead to the question of why they used contemporary enemies in the past, though.)
Comment by James Rickard
unlucky_ fishermen.com
Angling Fish
Just for the record--I think that clip provided my blood and guts quota for the week! Now I se why you reviewed this with the horror movies!
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Bethany
The REALLY weird thing about the MPAA: in a PG-13 movie, you can use the word 'f*ck' in a non-sexual context once. Use it more than once, or use it in a sexual context, and that's automatically an R rating.
How's that for screwed up?
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
The NC-17 is the same as our R. But we have the R rating on more movies than American movies get the NC-17.
Comment by Bethany
The MPAA are on my 'they really blinking annoy me' list, so I get awfully chatty about them.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
For years and bloody years horrorphiles have hoped the MPAA would come up with a rating similar to NC-17 (crying out for it back when it was still X) that wouldn't have the stigmata of porn. But it hasn't happened. Horror movies, and nightmare movies of the like, need to have a suitable rating that enables them to be properly distributed and theatrically released without having to have the film cut for a R rating.
I'm glad you have the same bee in your bonnet Bethany.
Comment by Daniel Mason
As a fan of mindless violence I enjoyed the hell out of it, though. At the end I just felt utterly empty. What was the point of this movie beyond criticism of the Burmese regime? (It's not even called Burma anymore; it's now known as Myanmar.)
Incidentally, the version I watched came from overseas and had the more poignant title of John Rambo. Considering the Japanese term for violence the singular title is far more apt for this movie.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile