After sitting down and watching Rambo
(2008), I’ve come to realize that the Rambo series gets worse and worse with
each instalment. Whilst the original is a timeless classic, the next two films
suffer in a similar way but Rambo (2008) is the worst of the lot. It’s almost
unbearable and makes Rambo III seem like a masterpiece.
There is truly only one thing about the
film that I enjoyed and that is Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo, a Vietnam war
veteran. Even then, it doesn’t help the film much considering that Stallone
isn’t even the central focus for much of the film and there are far too many
sequences without Rambo but instead Sarah and the medical crew and later, the
rescue team. It truly lowers the already low quality of the film when your beloved
character is off screen for far too long a time period, making you entirely
forget that this is a Rambo film. When Stallone finally gets into the action,
using a bow and arrow in an extremely abrupt scene, that is when I came to
realize that this was a Rambo film. Stallone is as good as ever, even if it is
20 years since he was Rambo. He basically embodies the role and his performance
is truly great, providing for some quiet and emotionally powerful moments.
Apart from Stallone, the other great thing about this film is John Rambo, who
is portrayed similar to how he was in the first two films, as a quiet and grief
stricken war veteran. The fact that he has little to say yet still strikes a
big impact on the film completely shows Stallone’s acting talents and not just
his physical talents. Sadly, his physical agility is rarely shown in this film
considering that he isn’t in very many action sequences. It cannot be the fact
that he has aged, simply due to the fact in the 2013 action film, ‘Bullet to the
Head’, he is physically powerful as he was in the original Rambo and Rocky
films. To get the good aspects of the film out of the way, Stallone gives a
great and powerful performance as Rambo.
Every other aspect of the film is nearly
terrible and unwatchable. All the supporting characters or more like
“unsupporting characters” do nothing that grabs your attention. It is pretty
much impossible to have a Rambo film without the relationship between Trautman,
played by Richard Crenna, who sadly passed away in 2003. Every other character
whether it be Sarah or Michael or even the rescue team utterly frustrate me,
especially the captain of the rescue team. He acts as a tough man often using
the ‘f’ word unnecessarily to the point where it becomes frustrating. This is
most evident in the scene where those guys are torturing him and his men and
he, just to stand up says “You gutless f*ck!” That entire sequence was
unbearable, not because of the pain given up these characters, but more because
of how utterly frustrating it all was. It became painful to hear his dialogue
for the rest of the film, which I thought wasn’t delivered well. All the
supporting characters have far too much screen time which deducts Rambo’s
screen time and makes it feel more of a film about a rescue team than Rambo. If
these characters were at least interesting, then it would’ve been fine but they
weren’t. Even though, there was similar thing with the first Rambo film, the
supporting characters were interesting and had an understandable reason as to
what they were going to do. Here, nothing just seems to make sense.
Digital blood never looks good in action
movies and it certainly doesn’t here. The great thing about the original Rambo
trilogy was how everything was practical effects due to the time period they
were made in. It added a certain feeling of excitement, whenever practical
blood effects splattered around the screen. Seeing blood splatter onto the
screen due to the work of the brilliance of the 21st Century
computers takes away from the excitement and enjoyment of action films. It is
completely overused throughout the entire film, making much of the action
sequences uninteresting. In all seriousness, much of the action scenes in this
film aren’t appealing like they were in the first two Rambo films and instead,
much of it is simply filled with digital blood and overuse of CGI effects which
become frustrating for a person who loves old school action films. The use of
CGI doesn’t frustrate me but the overuse and complete reliance of it does. Some
may say that Terminator 2 is CGI overused, it technically isn’t. Even if it
were, there was an interesting story and likeable characters. Here, none of it
is there.
‘First Blood’ is an extremely quick and
exciting 100 minute action picture, as is ‘First Blood: Part II’ even though it
is nowhere near the quality of the original. ‘Rambo III’ was a 100 minute pain
of a picture to sit through and watch and one couldn’t expect this film to be
anywhere near as bad as ‘Rambo III’. It was even worse! The film is slow for
countless reasons. There isn’t enough exciting action sequences, there isn’t an
engaging story and there is certainly no feeling of a Rambo film whatsoever. It
feels more like a Predator film with a medical crew. It’s a Predator film not
because of an ambush style action sequences but in terms of storyline. This
film is horrendously slow considering much of the film does not show much of
Stallone’ s physical strength which he clearly has and must hold back for most
of the film. It is never a good thing when one must check there watch countless
times throughout an action film.
Rambo (2008) attempts to be a lot like
Aliens as well. Why? Because, this film depicts an extremely dark and violent
tone much like Aliens does. In Aliens, the marines were likeable and badass
characters who spent free time making jokes and being all “cool”. The rescue
team in this film attempt to be the same but fail on every single level. None
of the jokes or the profanity used in this film do anything but annoy me. I love
profanity when it is used properly like in films such as Goodfellas, Pulp
Fiction or even action films such as Terminator 2. Here, it seems apparent that
the ‘f’ word is simply used to indicate a dark tone.
Overall, ‘Rambo (2008)’ is a terrible Rambo
film and is completely uninteresting from start to finish in everyway except
for Sylvester Stallone’s performance. In many sequences, overuse of CGI and
digital blood make action sequences hard to sit through and the rescue crew are
extremely annoying characters. Most of the film has annoying characters and
annoying jokes they make. This film is even worse than the horrid Rambo III.
Grade- 1.5/10-
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