Lone Wolf This Is Wolf Den - Colourful Metaphors

I don't think Rambo: First Blood Part II is given the credit it deserves. Before this film action movies had character development, dialogue, and transition scenes that broke up the action. But star and co-writer Sylvester Stallone made some canny decisions when approaching the first sequel to his 1982 classic First Blood.

First he did what all sequels try to do, but mostly fail; you keep what's great about the original and then expand upon it, making changes to location, action, additional characters and variations in plot. The narrative follows the same basic beats as First Blood; Rambo goes against a direct order, gets captured, escapes, then returns to destroy his captors headquarters and face down his enemy, face to face. Setting the film in Vietnam accomplishes two things. It links Rambo very neatly to the original story ("Like you said, Colonel, he went home") and it opens the door for some cathartic, patriotic flag waving from it's native American audience who are, like Rambo himself, bummed out that they didn't win the war.

Upon this basic structure in this jungle location the foundation for every dumb action bullshit movie (both the good and the bad) is laid. Everything that's not essential is stripped away. What remains are the barest essentials of plot points and character beats. In it's place is a movie that is 85% montage. It's almost like a director isn't required just a second unit stunt team and an editor on cocaine. The first half of the movie is an exercise in editing dramatic tension as Rambo stealthily weaves through the rivers and jungles of 'Nam evading capture, while the secong half is wall to wall action the like of which had never been attempted before (at least in an A-list actioner).

But by Jebus it works. One after another, the action scenes hit the audience getting bigger and better and sillier and more intense. The fact that it's just one guy verses an entire army (well two actually as it's the Vietnamese AND the Russians) only stimulates the primal feelings of anti-authoritarianism and revenge that everybody feels in their life to some degree. And it's heightened even further by an operatic Jerry Goldsmith score that ranks as my favorite of his illustrious career.

Critics will say that Rambo II is dumb, stupid and pointless. But not every movie has to be intelligent, as long as it makes an emotional connection. And as an example of film making that taps into that unevolved part of our brain that just wants to fantasize about cutting loose and kicking as, Rambo II is nearly peerless.

Oh, and before I forget, any film which casts Steven Berkoff as a crazy Russian Officer, you've got to give credit to.