Rambo

Sylvester Stallone wrote the first Rambo: First Blood screenplay; much like he would do when wrote Rocky, it was another moment when Sly took his career into his own hands and created a character for himself to shine. Shine being the operative word. Then in the late Noughties he decided to reinvent both Rocky and John Rambo by revisiting the franchises. He seems to have misunderstood his own creation with the latest Rambo film entirely.


Rambo appears to be an almost complete parody of itself. John Rambo now lives outside of Burma, catching snakes for a living and boating around in his skiff. He is extremely gruff and about double the size he was in the first film some twenty years ago. He is almost entirely characterless. Compared to the drifter of First Blood, trying his utmost to avoid difficulties and clearly scarred after trauma in conflict in Vietnam, this new Rambo is an empty husk without enough interest for an audience even for the brief hour and a bit the film runs for.


Then there's the violence. Rambo is mercilessly violent, but so are the military Burmese as they slaughter Christians in villages. From the news-broadcast style opening to the close of shooting the film is pockmarked by over-the-top violence that is neither necessary nor really offers anything to the film. It's horrific, but also seemingly didactic, as if to suggest that violence is a way of life that can be opted for. Rambo claims killing is in his blood. But there's no alternative really offered by the film, no chance for any kind of redemption. 


Perhaps that's the strength of the picture: Stallone has taken his violent creation and let the monster run rampant in a balls-to-the-walls high-voltage explosion fest. Maybe. Or maybe Stallone was dizzied by how much it is possible to simulate with modern CGI techniques and let the excitement of a super-shoot take over actually writing a script or plot with any kind of credibility at all.


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2008
Sylvester Stallone
Written and dir. Sylvester Stallone