Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.
You’re either a Rocky man, or a Rambo man. I’ve always considered myself a Rocky man and the new film Rambo confirms it. Rocky Balboa (Rocky VI) was a surprisingly well-done and well-acted comeback story that made your heart swell. Rambo, the fourth in the series that began 25 years ago with First Blood, is a bloody gorefest with more dead Burmese rebels than you can shake a severed leg at. It makes your heart swell, but only because 50-cal rounds are bursting through it. Heck, the MPAA rated it R because of "strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults and grisly images." Judging from this movie alone, its star, director and writer, Sly Stallone, has some serious issue. I'm guessing his daddy never hugged him.
John Rambo is an aging-but-still-ripped ex-Green Beret who, after fighting injustice in the U.S., Vietnam and Afghanistan (back when the Afghani rebels were still the good guys), has forgone the stereotypical retirement villa in Boca and instead has settled into the quiet, secluded life of a cobra wrangler/blacksmith in the jungles of Thailand. There’s a brutal (real life) civil war up stream in Burma (actually, it's called Myanmar now, but who's keeping track?). But, his killing days over, Rambo keeps his boat well south of the fighting and is content to scowl silently as he spends his days fishing with his bow and arrow.
He reluctantly agrees to use his boat (complete with its impossibly tiny, hand-forged propeller) to drop off some ill-prepared, inept NON-BAPTIST missionaries in the war zone, but only after Pretty Blond (Julie Benz) begs him and gives him her cross necklace. Aww. Rambo done gone and got religion! Too bad he has to get back to snake wrangling (“I don’t need any more cobras! I want pythons! I have enough cobras!”) and can’t play missionary.
All is going hunky dory until - GASP! - the genocidal Burmese guerrillas attack Pretty Blond & Co. and then the movie turns into Viscera City. Heads are shot (with bullets, bazookas AND hand-made arrows), torsos blown apart and limbs fly like confetti while buckets of blood explode towards the camera in qualities that put Kill Bill to shame. Remember the scenes in Saving Private Ryan where the D-Day soldiers are getting mowed down as they storm the beaches at Normandy? You ain’t seen nothing yet. In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder: is it possible this movie is more gruesome than dating in New York - umm... I meant "more gruesome than actual genocidal civil war"?
The baddies take Pretty Blond’s God Squad hostage. After they aren’t heard from, their pastor from Colorado flies to Thailand and hires Rambo to ferry a group of ethnically diverse mercenaries to rescue PB. (I wanted to know why the big pansy didn’t go on the trip in the first place. It's called "leadership," Rev!) One ‘Nam flashback later, Rambo agrees and tags along on the rescue, but only after forging his own special Ultimate Machete of Justice and Pain (at least that’s what I called it... see the poster above). Hilarity ensues.
I won’t spoil the ending by telling you whether or not Rambo succeeds in rescuing Pretty Blond and personally gutting the pedophile guerrilla General. Yes, I will. He does. I’d love to be at the “afterglow” service when the mission team and PB get back to Colorado. Thankfully, Stallone spared us and did not write a May-December romance between him and Pretty Blond, although there is a vague feeling that he wanted too and decided Rambo was just too tough for love. Or is he? The ending credits show Rambo lumbering down the driveway to say hi to his estranged father in New Mexico. I hope I didn't ruin anything for you.
Here are two questions you can ponder:
No one has ever accused Stallone of being cerebral, but after the touching and engaging Rocky Balboa, Rambo and its mindless fight-violence-with-violence ethic (not to mention its mindless dialog) feels utterly... well, useless. Stallone supposedly hopes the film will generate awareness of the brutal carnage that truly is going on in Burma. Either he has no sense of irony or he is going senile in his old age.
You’re either a Rocky man, or a Rambo man. I’ve always considered myself a Rocky man and the new film Rambo confirms it. Rocky Balboa (Rocky VI) was a surprisingly well-done and well-acted comeback story that made your heart swell. Rambo, the fourth in the series that began 25 years ago with First Blood, is a bloody gorefest with more dead Burmese rebels than you can shake a severed leg at. It makes your heart swell, but only because 50-cal rounds are bursting through it. Heck, the MPAA rated it R because of "strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults and grisly images." Judging from this movie alone, its star, director and writer, Sly Stallone, has some serious issue. I'm guessing his daddy never hugged him.
John Rambo is an aging-but-still-ripped ex-Green Beret who, after fighting injustice in the U.S., Vietnam and Afghanistan (back when the Afghani rebels were still the good guys), has forgone the stereotypical retirement villa in Boca and instead has settled into the quiet, secluded life of a cobra wrangler/blacksmith in the jungles of Thailand. There’s a brutal (real life) civil war up stream in Burma (actually, it's called Myanmar now, but who's keeping track?). But, his killing days over, Rambo keeps his boat well south of the fighting and is content to scowl silently as he spends his days fishing with his bow and arrow.
He reluctantly agrees to use his boat (complete with its impossibly tiny, hand-forged propeller) to drop off some ill-prepared, inept NON-BAPTIST missionaries in the war zone, but only after Pretty Blond (Julie Benz) begs him and gives him her cross necklace. Aww. Rambo done gone and got religion! Too bad he has to get back to snake wrangling (“I don’t need any more cobras! I want pythons! I have enough cobras!”) and can’t play missionary.
All is going hunky dory until - GASP! - the genocidal Burmese guerrillas attack Pretty Blond & Co. and then the movie turns into Viscera City. Heads are shot (with bullets, bazookas AND hand-made arrows), torsos blown apart and limbs fly like confetti while buckets of blood explode towards the camera in qualities that put Kill Bill to shame. Remember the scenes in Saving Private Ryan where the D-Day soldiers are getting mowed down as they storm the beaches at Normandy? You ain’t seen nothing yet. In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder: is it possible this movie is more gruesome than dating in New York - umm... I meant "more gruesome than actual genocidal civil war"?
The baddies take Pretty Blond’s God Squad hostage. After they aren’t heard from, their pastor from Colorado flies to Thailand and hires Rambo to ferry a group of ethnically diverse mercenaries to rescue PB. (I wanted to know why the big pansy didn’t go on the trip in the first place. It's called "leadership," Rev!) One ‘Nam flashback later, Rambo agrees and tags along on the rescue, but only after forging his own special Ultimate Machete of Justice and Pain (at least that’s what I called it... see the poster above). Hilarity ensues.
I won’t spoil the ending by telling you whether or not Rambo succeeds in rescuing Pretty Blond and personally gutting the pedophile guerrilla General. Yes, I will. He does. I’d love to be at the “afterglow” service when the mission team and PB get back to Colorado. Thankfully, Stallone spared us and did not write a May-December romance between him and Pretty Blond, although there is a vague feeling that he wanted too and decided Rambo was just too tough for love. Or is he? The ending credits show Rambo lumbering down the driveway to say hi to his estranged father in New Mexico. I hope I didn't ruin anything for you.
Here are two questions you can ponder:
- Is it against the Geneva Convention to physically rip a man’s trachea from his throat with your bare hands?
- After Rambo single-handedly disembowels an saws an entire regiment of the army in half with the .50 cal. and saves one small village, what is the fate of the rest of the nation which is now facing the rest of the army, only this time sans a geriatric superhero?
No one has ever accused Stallone of being cerebral, but after the touching and engaging Rocky Balboa, Rambo and its mindless fight-violence-with-violence ethic (not to mention its mindless dialog) feels utterly... well, useless. Stallone supposedly hopes the film will generate awareness of the brutal carnage that truly is going on in Burma. Either he has no sense of irony or he is going senile in his old age.
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