Rambo
I have nothing really to say about this film that Matt over at The House Next Door hasn't already said. So I will just link you to his article.
I will only add that the movie is a full blown catastrophe. Not until the final 15-20 minutes can you really be "exhilarated" by the action going on. The film is so bloody, so gruesome and gory that it's hard to be entertained by it.
I laughed out loud at a lot of the violence at the end. Once Rambo gets a hold of a giant gun he begins to mow people down and shred their bodies with bullets. The scene is so lazy (Rambo doesn't do anything, he just sits there and shoots people...no action, yet this is an action movie) and it's also hilarious because it goes on for so long.
Now the bad...I mean really bad, is that Stallone wanted to have it both ways with this film. Much like I mentioned in my other Rambo reviews, Stallone was trying to make a serious film about how post Vietnam vets deal with life after the war. However in this installment of Rambo, Stallone wishes to make into Schindler's List, showing gruesome stock footage and recreated scenes of Burmese women and children being stabbed, shot, raped, and forced to run through mine infested rice patties. Ugh. It's so ugly it made me feel uncomfortable watching it, because I know that the film didn't have a serious bone in its body. All of this stock footage and gory footage just serves as fodder so that Stallone can establish that these people are bad, and Rambo is good, and the only thing to do in order to change anything is to kill them all and show it in an even more gruesome way.
Also, it seems that Mr. Woo's flesh eating hogs from Deadwood also make an appearance.
Also, I love how at the end Rambo just looks at the missionaries (after some of the missionaries had been killed, and one even turned into a killer) with a "I told you so" glare that sends a clear and obvious message to the viewer.
The parallels between Iraq II and the tyrannical Burmanese General and how he is dealt with are apparent. But read Matt's blog about it over at The House Next Door, because he does a great job (much better than I could ever hope) of explaining why the film is so atrocious and ugly in its politics.
I will only add that the movie is a full blown catastrophe. Not until the final 15-20 minutes can you really be "exhilarated" by the action going on. The film is so bloody, so gruesome and gory that it's hard to be entertained by it.
I laughed out loud at a lot of the violence at the end. Once Rambo gets a hold of a giant gun he begins to mow people down and shred their bodies with bullets. The scene is so lazy (Rambo doesn't do anything, he just sits there and shoots people...no action, yet this is an action movie) and it's also hilarious because it goes on for so long.
Now the bad...I mean really bad, is that Stallone wanted to have it both ways with this film. Much like I mentioned in my other Rambo reviews, Stallone was trying to make a serious film about how post Vietnam vets deal with life after the war. However in this installment of Rambo, Stallone wishes to make into Schindler's List, showing gruesome stock footage and recreated scenes of Burmese women and children being stabbed, shot, raped, and forced to run through mine infested rice patties. Ugh. It's so ugly it made me feel uncomfortable watching it, because I know that the film didn't have a serious bone in its body. All of this stock footage and gory footage just serves as fodder so that Stallone can establish that these people are bad, and Rambo is good, and the only thing to do in order to change anything is to kill them all and show it in an even more gruesome way.
Also, it seems that Mr. Woo's flesh eating hogs from Deadwood also make an appearance.
Also, I love how at the end Rambo just looks at the missionaries (after some of the missionaries had been killed, and one even turned into a killer) with a "I told you so" glare that sends a clear and obvious message to the viewer.
The parallels between Iraq II and the tyrannical Burmanese General and how he is dealt with are apparent. But read Matt's blog about it over at The House Next Door, because he does a great job (much better than I could ever hope) of explaining why the film is so atrocious and ugly in its politics.
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