2008 Woodie Awards
Rambo addition gores its way onto the silver screen
Jason Schueppert
Issue date: 2/11/08 Section: Intermission
The latest film in the Rambo franchise is by far the goriest movie of '08.
Granted, it's only been a month since the new year rolled around, but the movie is built on the bloody fragments cast off the unlucky by Mr. Rambo and the Burmese army.
It's been 20 years since "Rambo III" came out. Stallone, now 61-years-old, took his time getting the character back on screen, but he's certainly figured out how to make his hero relevant again. He's taken full advantage of the advances in special effects and crafted a kill-a-thon dressed up as a moral tale that's slim on dialog.
When a group of missionaries from Colorado show up in Rambo's hideaway on the border between Thailand and Burma, he immediately refuses to take them to the dangerous war zone they're attempting to deliver medical supplies to.
Cue the pretty blonde woman who appeals to Rambo's sense of humanity and a repetitive back and forth on good, evil and change (or lack of it) between the two of them.
It's not a well written movie, but that's irrelevant.
All the screenplay is doing is showing that Rambo has a sense of right and wrong, and he'd like to be a better person, so he helps them.
Of course, shortly after Rambo drops them off at their destination (one pirate fight later), they're kidnapped by the most evil monsters in film history: the Burmese army.
Now the entire movie and its momentum is based around Rambo being good, and the Burmese army being evil.
And the movie definitely paints them as evil heathens.
They play games with civilians where they toss landmines into swamps and make a group of civilians run through the muck until they explode (or, should they survive the mine race, they shoot them).
They also like to rape and torture women, feed men to pigs and blow stuff up. So you're definitely all for Rambo going in and wiping out an entire army in the name of good.
Stallone mutters and slurs his way through maybe 30 words through the whole flick while he rips out people's throats with his hands, chops off heads, shoots arrows through skulls and disembowels the captors of the nice Christian girl and her ministry he's trying to rescue.
Granted, it's only been a month since the new year rolled around, but the movie is built on the bloody fragments cast off the unlucky by Mr. Rambo and the Burmese army.
It's been 20 years since "Rambo III" came out. Stallone, now 61-years-old, took his time getting the character back on screen, but he's certainly figured out how to make his hero relevant again. He's taken full advantage of the advances in special effects and crafted a kill-a-thon dressed up as a moral tale that's slim on dialog.
When a group of missionaries from Colorado show up in Rambo's hideaway on the border between Thailand and Burma, he immediately refuses to take them to the dangerous war zone they're attempting to deliver medical supplies to.
Cue the pretty blonde woman who appeals to Rambo's sense of humanity and a repetitive back and forth on good, evil and change (or lack of it) between the two of them.
It's not a well written movie, but that's irrelevant.
All the screenplay is doing is showing that Rambo has a sense of right and wrong, and he'd like to be a better person, so he helps them.
Of course, shortly after Rambo drops them off at their destination (one pirate fight later), they're kidnapped by the most evil monsters in film history: the Burmese army.
Now the entire movie and its momentum is based around Rambo being good, and the Burmese army being evil.
And the movie definitely paints them as evil heathens.
They play games with civilians where they toss landmines into swamps and make a group of civilians run through the muck until they explode (or, should they survive the mine race, they shoot them).
They also like to rape and torture women, feed men to pigs and blow stuff up. So you're definitely all for Rambo going in and wiping out an entire army in the name of good.
Stallone mutters and slurs his way through maybe 30 words through the whole flick while he rips out people's throats with his hands, chops off heads, shoots arrows through skulls and disembowels the captors of the nice Christian girl and her ministry he's trying to rescue.