As I eased into my seat to watch Sylvester Stallone crack some skulls in Rambo -- the first Rambo movie in twenty years -- I'll admit to feeling a bit giddy. A blast of 1980s excess is exactly what the slumping action genre needs right now, if you ask me. To paraphrase the old John Candy SCTV character -- I wanted to see everything get blowed up real good. So you can imagine my surprise when the film opened with a montage of real-life footage documenting atrocities in Burma. And this is serious stuff -- we're talking slaughtered women and children here. Quickly, my excitement turned to discomfort and disgust. But just as I was preparing to mount my high horse and cry "Exploitation!," I started to get excited again. Because I knew that Rambo was going to get the bastards responsible.
It's an uneasy reaction, but that's what Rambo does! Whether he's standing up to authority in First Blood, symbolically winning the Vietnam War for America in Part II, or saving Afghanistan from the Soviets (ah, how times have changed!) in Rambo III, Rambo's job is to take the action that no one else will. And it can be pretty exhilarating to watch. In interviews, Stallone (who also wrote and directed Rambo) has said he hopes the new film will force people to take note of the civil war raging in Burma. But let's be honest here -- the guy's using an immeasurably tragic situation to make his action movie more effective. And distasteful as it may be -- it works.
The film opens with Rambo puttering around the swamps of Thailand, only opening his mouth to grunt wacky catchphrases like "F*** the world." A group of missionaries tries to recruit him for protection against pirates on an aid mission to Burma. (As Seinfeld's J. Peterman says "You most likely know it as Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me.") The missionaries are led by Michael (Paul Schulze, Father Phil on The Sopranos) and Sarah (Julie Benz, Rita on Dexter) -- characters who are every bit as exciting as their names. Rambo's not interested, but is eventually worn down by Sarah, for reasons not made entirely clear. (Although the fact that the dude's been living with snakes and pigs for years and Benz is a foxy lady probably has something to do with it.) So Rambo takes them down river, fights off some decidedly non-Jack Sparrowesque pirates, drops them off at their destination and returns home to Snaketown. But when the missionaries are later kidnapped by Burmese soldiers, their pastor visits Rambo in his tent (a hilariously unlikely scene) and recruits him (again!) to lead a team of mercenaries on a rescue mission.
Rambo's merry band of mercenaries, played by, among others, Matthew Marsden, Reynaldo Gallegos, and Graham McTavish (whose agent probably pitches him as "the poor man's Jason Statham") are unfortunately every bit as bland as the missionaries. If you're going to team people up with the stoic Rambo -- they've got to have some personality! Stallone should have studied Schwarzenegger's awesome crew of hardasses in Predator. No one here leaves an impression, but luckily these dudes spend more time shooting people than talking. And as Stallone depicts them, the Burmese aren't people you could talk with anyhow. They're less civil than the cobras.
How bad are these Burmese dudes? Stallone pulls out all the stops. They mow down innocent civilians while cackling. They rape women left and right. There's a jaw-dropping subplot about a captain who molests young boys. And at one point -- I kid you not -- a small child is bayoneted, lifted into the air, and thrown into a roaring fire. Yeah. That happens. Fair and balanced this is not. If all that seems like overkill, just you wait. This thing might as well have been called Rambo: Overkill.
The climax of this film is probably the most violent sequence I've seen since the opening of Saving Private Ryan -- a film whose style Stallone tries to emulate through the use of drained colors and excessive shaki-cam. That Rambo received an 'R' rating while something like Ang Lee's Lust, Caution received an NC-17 confirms again how absolutely silly the MPAA is. The last half hour of Rambo is just people exploding. Rambo shoots you with a gun, you explode. Rambo hits you with an arrow, you explode. Rambo gives you a wedgie, you explode. And those who don't explode probably wish that they had -- it's certainly better than having your larynx slowly ripped out by a 61-year-old man in a bandana! (Just wait until you see that scene! Yowza!) It's insane carnage, and -- pardon the pun -- it's a blast. It's hardcore, it's unflinching, it's hard to tell who's killing who, and it doesn't really matter. This is the sort of balls-out action sequence violence junkies will watch and re-watch.
The simple title (believe it or not, this is this first Rambo movie to be called Rambo!) suggests the same back-to-basics approach that worked beautifully for the surprisingly excellent Rocky Balboa, Stallone's previous attempt at re-inventing a thought-dead franchise. But in my humble opinion, Stallone doesn't have near as much to prove here. Rambo was never as lovable a character as Rocky, and re-watching the Rambo movies this week, I realized none of them are particularly great. Fun sure, but nothing more. He's not trying to match the power of the Best Picture-winning Rocky here, he's trying to match the entertainment level of some solidly enjoyable shoot 'em up action flicks. And on those grounds, Rambo is a complete success.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-25-2008 @ 12:29PM
DAVID F said...
Count me in! Regardless of it's reviews I'll still see this one for the same reason that old John Candy character proclaimed. Sometimes it's just good to see stuff "blowed up" old school! I also have found it bizarre how sexually explicit films will get NC-17 and then movies like this, Hostel and the Saw films get an R rating....but that's America. Let's be real though....MPAA has no bearing on an audience. People will find a way to see the movie regardless. It's too bad Lionsgate isn't showing much faith in this film though seeing as how they didn't give out any advance screenings for it. Some of the reviews I've read today have wondered what audience this movie is for. It's for people who like Stallone and long to see sadistic murderers get their comeuppance. As in every form of entertainment....there's an audience for everything!
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1-25-2008 @ 12:30PM
The Addict said...
Though I've only seen it once, and that was a few months ago, I think First Blood may be my second favorite action movie, hanging out right behind the original Die Hard. I love them both because they're the thinking man's action movies; they're films with a plot and characters you actually care about.
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1-25-2008 @ 12:49PM
onedollarwilliam said...
Have you seen Predator recently? The characters Should be interesting, but the movie is so slow and drawn out I literally fell asleep, and we were watching it with Rifftrax.
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1-25-2008 @ 5:36PM
benjamin said...
I thought Jason Statham was advertised as "the poor man's Jason Statham."
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1-25-2008 @ 9:01PM
Zac said...
Lookin forward to checking out Rambo tonight! As anyone who has seen the trailers for the movie must know by now, this new installment in the franchise seems much more bloody, violent, and realistic than any of the other Rambo flicks. Here's an uncensored clip I found from the movie:
http://www.ngtv.com/
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1-26-2008 @ 12:45AM
Screen Rant said...
I'm with you. I went into Rambo today expecting it to be terrible (35% on Rotten Tomatoes) and I ended up LOVING it.
Yes, it's extremely rough but it's a great Rambo movie.
Vic
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1-26-2008 @ 4:13PM
LEEANN said...
I remember watching all the Rambos with my boys on Military bases in various locations, we loved them and loved Sly. he is a good guy and along with his shootem up entertainment we had a blast. My youngest son twenty years later sat with me last night in the theatre and enjoyed the last of the Rambo's Yes' it is violent but perhaps it will let people know how ruthless the enemy is, but being a Military family we alway felt "kill them all let God sort them out. Loved it'''''
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1-28-2008 @ 12:11AM
Lisa said...
Saw Rambo Friday night. Yes, it's gory. Yes, it's violent. But I LOVED it! (I'm a female too). I especially liked the fact that the little pansy self-righteous peace-niks got an education in reality. Stallone has made a new fan.
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1-28-2008 @ 10:10PM
HelloJello1212 said...
It's unfortunate that the one time you speak of the MPAA, you do so in passing. The MPAA will never change when people with even marginal influence like Cinematical just dismiss the censorship as "silly" and not criminal. Stars and studios will never take it on, only the fringe artists and those who want to see the art form reach its full potential have any ability to change an inherently oppressive ratings system. Either you're part of the solution or you're part of the problem. Calling the MPAA "silly" in passing... definitely not part of the solution...
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2-03-2008 @ 4:55PM
poop said...
i loved rambo through the whole thing but ending was week. i meen like what happened to the church guys? what happens after rambo leaves and gos back to AZ?
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2-27-2008 @ 12:51PM
Moriarte said...
http://thebigbadfilmreview.blogspot.com/
Alternate Title:
Rambo-Forearms
Ram-Bore
This film had such a weak story line it could only be strung out for an hour and a quarter. It basically concerns a group of christian missionaries being held hostage in Burma, and Rambo, along with a group of mercenaries, being contracted by a Pastor to free them.
Rambo 4 is in stark contrast to the other Rambos where he muscle posed his way to self glory. In this film, however, he must have been too self conscious of his love handles and sausage veins that the central focus of Rambo, and his character as a whole for that matter, was his forearms.
The Burmese soldiers were portrayed as verminous killing scum who feed live people to pigs, and Sly even makes further propaganda swipes at Burmese generals by portraying the one in this movie as a raper of young boys.
The killing is so gratuitous and lustful, you wonder what kind of sick, sado-masterbatory audience could enjoy this snuff movie. Rambo manages to effortlessly kill everybody in every imaginable way, and would have encountered more resistance had the Burmese army been replaced by a bunch of grannies armed with knitting needles and balls of wool. And where the hell he manages to find , in the middle of the jungle, some kind of huge, thermo-nuclear device to detonate at short notice is any one's guess.
This abomination of a movie further insult by trying to add believability to this sado-wet dream, by allowing Rambo to get a slight nick from a bullet to his shoulder in the last minutes of the film, as he's mopping up the final remaining Burmese 'skittle' soldiers.
It was a pity Rambo's Kernel is no longer alive as he was the real star of the Rambo franchise and provided the only hint of class and proper acting.
Anyone claiming this was just a bit of fun should watch again the actual footage of the suffering of the Burmese people shown at the beginning of this film, appreciate how Sly has tried to glorify himself at their expense, and then should proceed straight to the doctors and have their brains checked out for advanced syphilis.
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