Rambo is back, and he's mad as hell
Written: Feb 05 '08
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Great action sequences
Cons: Sparse dialogue, too short
The Bottom Line: It left me wanting more, but I still enjoyed every second of it.
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| phungus's Full Review: Rambo |
Sylvester Stallone is back in one of his signature roles as Vietnam veteran John Rambo, in the fourth movie of the series. It is simply titled Rambo, just like his most recent Rocky, and both films basically conclude the series. Fans of the previous Rambo movies will probably enjoy this one, and luckily it wasn’t too disappointing.
In this movie, which is set in present day, John Rambo is living a life of misery somewhere in Thailand. He has lost his faith in humanity and scrounges a living capturing snakes for a local snake show, plus he does a little fishing. When we first meet him, it’s like he’s lost his will to live, but keeps on just for the sake of keeping on. When a group of missionaries show up asking him to give them a ride into Burma so that they can help some of the war-torn villagers, he at first refuses and says nobody can help them. I was a little surprised by his defeatist attitude through most of the first act of a movie.
Eventually, the pretty blonde of the bunch gets through to him when she says that it’s not wasting your life to try and save someone else’s life. The blonde is played by Julie Benz, who is best known for her role as Darla on the Angel series, and she’s currently starring in the Showtime series Dexter. The missionaries believe they can help some of the people, despite the fact that they have no weapons. Rambo warns them time and again, but they don’t listen and pretty soon find themselves in a lot of trouble.
When a group of commandos are hired to go into the Burma to rescue the missionaries, Rambo ends up giving them a ride upriver. Pretty soon, he joins them in helping the missionaries, and they all find themselves outnumbered and outgunned. Rambo has some flashbacks to his earlier years, and then he snaps back into what he’s been made for – killing every last mo-fo that gets in his way, and that he does.
This movie is by far the bloodiest and goriest of the series. Hundreds of people die on screen, and in ways that leave them dismembered or worse. Arms, legs, heads, intestines, and more go flying through the air as people are shot or step on land mines. It shows small children being shot to death and babies thrown into fires. Needless to say, it’s rated R for a very good reason. I must admit the opening pre-credit scenes are comprised of stock news footage from the area, and those scenes were surprisingly worse than anything created using special effects and make-up for this movie.
Besides the lack of dialogue in the last half of the movie, I was disappointed by how little Rambo got to do in the final battle. There is a huge gunfight on a hill, and pretty much all Rambo does the entire fight is stand in the back of a jeep and shoot people with the machine gun mounted on the roll bar. He does give one especially bad guy a ‘special treatment’, but that’s about it. Part of what made the other Rambo movies so good was that he pretty much flew solo throughout the entire story, but in this movie he works with a large group of other people. I think it stole some of his glory, but it does at least give the movie an excuse to rack up a much higher body count.
At only 90 minutes long, this movie is over very quickly. By the time it was over, I was expecting a lot more, especially since Rambo didn’t move around too much during the huge gunfight. He does get to do a few cool things, including using his bow for good reason, but I think this movie could have had a lot more meat to it. Although it is titled Rambo, he just wasn’t as much the center of attention as I wanted him to be.
I think it was the success of Stallone’s last Rocky movie that probably helped this new Rambo one get the green light. Both of them were written and directed by Stallone himself, and I think they fit pretty well into the series. Both films were better than the ones that preceded them, but still fail in comparison to the original. Ultimately, I think fans of Stallone’s Rambo character will enjoy seeing him one last time. What it lacks in terms of dialogue and character development are more than redeemed with one great action sequence after another.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Action Movie
Worst Part of this Film: Duration
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