Sylvester Stallone's final Rambo film, imaginatively titled "Rambo", reminds me of Hot Shots 2. But more about that in a second.
After the wastelands of the early 2000's Stallone took his own career by the horns and started directing his own movies again (after a 20 year gap following Rocky IV), starting with 2006's Rocky Balboa. Then he turned his attention to his other iconic role, that of John Rambo, not seen since 1988's big budget Rambo III. And once again, he's done a great job of resurrecting, and finally laying to rest, one of his best loved characters.
Stallone does several things right.
1/ Story wise, he makes Rambo most similar to the most popular entry of the franchise, Rambo - First Blood Part II, by returning to a jungle setting and by including a sympathetic female to keep John boy emotionally engaged. Stallone piled on the weight for this role and it shows. This Rambo is a bear of a man; physically embodying the character's beliefs that we are all, at the end of the day, wild animals. Finally, the man is brave enough to give us a final shot which references First Blood, bringing the character home to his U.S. family residence.
2/ He also adapts the movie's action and pace to reflect the more limited budget (compared with it's predecessors) and Stallone's own advancing years. So there are less of action sequences to go around, and in those action set pieces, Rambo is more stationary. Instead of quantity we get brutality on a large scale. So out go close quarter knife fights and bow and arrow cat and mouse...in comes exploding mini-nukes and truck mounted cannons. And it works too, as the brutality is some of the most gleefully savage committed to a Hollywood movie. Heads explode, bodies are ripped in half, torso's are punctures with fist sized bullet wounds. Marvelous.
3/ Brian Tyler delivers the obligatory modern action score but retains enough of Jerry Goldsmith's original themes (he composed the music for the other three Rambo flicks) to make this feel a part of the franchises continuity. He also chucks in a great new theme to keep the film active on an emotional level, not just one based on testosterone.
Stallone, always a capable director in the 80's shows he's still got great skill at telling a story and understanding character, even if it is on a dumbed down 2D kind of way. His photography has a distinctive, gritty look and the action sequences are kinetic but understandable, with characters intent, action and geography clearly communicated. I wish the guy had directed more often and I'm sure pleased that he continues to do so (with The Expendables, his new directing effort, due next week.
Although this is the weakest of the four Rambo movies (lacking the realistic thriller quality of the first movie and the large scale operatics of the other two) this is an extremely worthy addition to the series and one I'd whole heatedly recommend to fans of action cinema.
Oh, and the Hot Shots 2 similarity? Well if Rambo has a message it's that killing is a part of human nature and that it's absolutely necessary. He's not joking either as 'the use of war to obtain peace' formed a part of President Obama's Nobel Peace Price acceptance speech. Anyway, there's a moment when Miguel Ferrer's pacifist gets a moment of clarity from Rambo clone Topper Harley proclaiming, "Thank you, Topper. I can kill again, you've given me another reason to live!" It's a moment echoed in Rambo as one of the rescued Missionaries reaches for a rock and bludgeons a Burmese soldier to death. An ironic moment of art inspiring satire, which in turn inspires art. Yep, as Ferrer says in that very scene, "War...It's fantastic!" Damned right!
No comments:
Post a Comment