January 28, 2008
Rambo
My teenaged childhood hero was John J Rambo, main character in the movie First Blood and later Rambo films. And so it was with high anticipation, but with low expectations (given the later films), that I joined my friends to go see the latest Rambo film. I generally hate reviews because they tend to give too much away, so I will attempt to write this in a way so as to do so.
Okay, first things first. This is not the Rambo of yore. This movie is extra-ultra violent, to the point of extreme. To get an idea of how violent, couple the level violence of the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan with the horrible atrocity level of Schindler's List, then cause this to go on for 45 minutes and you get an idea of the extreme levels of violence in this movie. Whereas I'd easily take a 14 year old son to see First Blood, Die Hard, and many other similar R rated action movies, I wouldn't personally let anyone under 18 see this one. I'm 100% surprised the thing had just an R rating, as I think it easily warrants an NC-17. I mean, I'm guessing that sans the bad language the original First Blood could be run on network tv uncut. In comparison, I'm not sure they'll ever be able to show Rambo on tv without cutting it down to about 30 minutes long :) In other words, this film is really not a popcorn movie.
The Good: I personally didn't think there was too much goofiness. Some of the violence was over the top, but then again I don't know what the effects of certain types of weapons really are, so I'll ignore a few of the gory special effect that I thought might have been too much. Main thing is there were no helicopter vs. tank battles (ala Rambo III) or other such goofy sequences. The film takes itself pretty seriously, and it does (almost too well) show the atrocities currently happening in Burma/Myanmar. I think Stallone tries to make a point that we ought to be doing something about the slaughter there, and he does pretty well (though see "the bad" below). Most of the action seems reasonable, even if amazing. Has some REALLY good gun shooting sequences - I'm sure there was some "shooting from the hip" action, but by and large the gun play was pretty realistic. And yes, he uses a bow (to great and cool effect), but no goofy exploding tipped arrows. Also, people (including Rambo) run out of ammo. Lastly, I absolutely love how the film ends off and wraps up.
The Bad: The thing is WAY WAY too short. 93 minutes, and when the final violence was done and the credits began to roll, I wasn't at ALL ready for it to be done and so I felt a little cheated as I walked out of the theater. The action doesn't start until at least 20-30 minutes in, which is perfect really, but then the last hour is non-stop violence. This is fine, but I think the movie could have been drawn out a bit to good effect with some non-violent sequences interspersed into the action sequences, not only to simply make the movie longer, but to accomplish two specific things. First, I think the film relies on your level of familiarity with Rambo in the previous movies, especially the first (i.e. First Blood). Second, and even worse, there are a surprising number of side characters, none of whom we really get to know before the violence begins (and before, in many cases, they start dying). So, while I understand the desire to keep things moving after the action begins, I think more time should have been taken to establish the side characters as well as the Rambo character (for people who have never seen the other movies and to establish better his current personal/emotional situation for those who have). I also think much was cut that would have been best left in - for example, there is one sequence where some people get into a bad situation, but you're not sure how (they're in general danger but okay in one scene, and then a few scene changes later something bad has happened to them, Rambo discovers, without explanation). Perhaps most importantly, the main bad guy is just too evil. He is just about as evil as you can get, and when you think he can't be any more evil, he does one last thing to make sure you know he's evil to the core, in case the previous horrible atrocities weren't enough. Because of this, I think while Stallone's message that Burma/Myanmar is a disaster that ought to be dealt with is somewhat effective overall, the totally evil bad guy and his totally evil cronies make the situation there seem almost too terrible to believe. This, in turn, I think detracts from Stallone's "hey, there's something bad going on in the world" message. Lastly, the movie has VERY little dialog from Stallone himself - even less than usual, if that can be possible - which is too bad, because I think a little more dialog could have helped better establish Rambo's current character/mood/psychological state.
The Ugly: Stallone is looking pretty gnarly (but still huge and Ramboish), but there is a side character chick in the movie who is NOT ugly in the slightest. :)
All in all, I recommend this movie - just don't look for a huge plot or anything. Go for the gore and the crazy gun play.