If you haven't seen Mr. Cranpire's comment from last night's post, let me preface tonight's digression by excerpting it here:
While watching the Substitute 4(Treat Williams vs. young Nazis) I decided that the 4th part of any series now must have the subtitle
Down to the Last Drop.
Spread the word and look for any movie where it actually makes sense.
True to my word, I will spread the word although I had a hell of a time with the second part. There are a lot of part 4's out there, so I tried. Most didn't end well.
Friday the 13th Part IV: Down to the Last Drop
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Down the the Last Drop
Thunderball: Down to the Last Drop
Leprechaun 4: Down to the Last Drop in Space
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part IV: The Dream Master Down to the Last Drop
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes: Down to the Last Drop
Land of the Dead: Down to the Last Drop
Shadow of the Thin Man: Down to the Last Drop
Terminator Salvation: Down to the Last Drop
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Down to the Last Drop*
Star Wars: A New Hope Down to the Last Drop
Lethal Weapon IV: Down to the Last Drop
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Down to the Last Drop
Psycho 4: Down to the Last Drop
I tried this with several more tetralogies, mostly unsuccessfully...
Admittedly, it does sometimes work, if in silly ways:
Bloodsport 4: Down to the Last Drop
Rocky IV: Down to the Last Drop
Live Free or Die Hard: Down to the Last Drop
Rambo: Down to the Last Drop
Hellraiser IV: Down to the Last Drop
Phantasm IV: Down to the Last Drop
Fast and Furious: Down the the Last Drop
Alien Resurrection: Down to the Last Drop
Saw IV: Down to the Last Drop
Anaconda: Trail of Blood Down to the Last Drop
House of Dracula: Down to the Last Drop
Citizen Toxie: Down to the Last Drop
The best one I could find, to be honest, was Killer Tomatoes Eat France Down to the Last Drop.
If it were ever to happen, I can't argue with Evil Dead 4: Down to the Last Drop. That has the makings of a classic right there.
However, the winner for absolute dirtiest subtitle addition has to be:
Batman & Robin: Down to the Last Drop
coming in a close second is Meatballs 4: Down to the Last Drop. gross.
So there you have it. I don't know how well this theory holds up, but I tested it.
* okay, that's kind of funny.
Showing posts with label John Mah-Fuckin Rambo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Mah-Fuckin Rambo. Show all posts
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Quick Bits and Taken reconsidered.
First things first: I saw Star Trek today. Prepare for a full write up some time early next week. The quick review is that I liked it and think the super nerdy comic book lead-in was helpful in filling in the gaps.
---
Last night the Doctor Who party ended up being a little too hastily planned, so those in attendance ended up joining me in scrapping the Who action in favor of some good old-fashioned "Guy Movie" fun. We watched the most ridiculous scenes from Commando and Rambo, including the "Schwarzenegger kills an entire compound of drug lord soldiers and Rambo destroys pretty much everything with that huge gun" before watching Taken. For two of us, it was a repeat viewing; for the others, it was a first time experience.
Upon re-watching Taken, I noticed a few things not apparent on the first viewing. For one thing, the whole "setting things up" trope takes much longer the second time around, mostly because you know the movie can and will be more effective once Liam Neeson gets to France. That renders the first fifteen to twenty minutes pretty much unnecessary and they accordingly feel much longer.
The second tidbit we fixated on is that Taken pretty much takes the position that "Mass Murder is preferable to Selling People" in moral equivalency. In Commando, Arnold is killing everyone guarding the person who kinapped his daughter and because they're shooting at him. In Rambo, John Rambo gets all medieval on the bad guys because they want to kill missionaries for pretty much no reason and someone hires him to find them.
In Taken, Bryan Mills not only kills the Albanians who kidnapped his daughter, but he pretty much kills anyone he meets before and after that. If you're involved in any way in the human trading business, you're dead meat because Liam Neeson is going to murder you and continue killing. Even if you're just kind of hanging out on a boat, you'll be lucky if he doesn't just throw you overboard. In fact, that's the nicest thing he does to anybody in the second half of the film.
After the Albanian shootout, Taken introduces us to a number of characters simply so Liam Neeson can kill them, and at the end (SPOILER) he gets to go back to America, no questions asked. It was also pointed out that he took advantage of France's health care system beforehand to recoup from being stabbed by an Arab stereotype. Now that's some lesson in morality.
---
Finally, whilst surfing the Playstation Store, I noticed that two movies are inexplicably available in HD. I've never heard of Robot Holocaust before, but I suddenly need to see it and $4.50 doesn't seem so unreasonable.
The other movie available in HD for no apparent reason: Troll 2.
Guess what just made its way onto the Summer Fest lineup. No seriously, take a guess.
If you guessed "Not Troll 2", you are wrong.
---
Last night the Doctor Who party ended up being a little too hastily planned, so those in attendance ended up joining me in scrapping the Who action in favor of some good old-fashioned "Guy Movie" fun. We watched the most ridiculous scenes from Commando and Rambo, including the "Schwarzenegger kills an entire compound of drug lord soldiers and Rambo destroys pretty much everything with that huge gun" before watching Taken. For two of us, it was a repeat viewing; for the others, it was a first time experience.
Upon re-watching Taken, I noticed a few things not apparent on the first viewing. For one thing, the whole "setting things up" trope takes much longer the second time around, mostly because you know the movie can and will be more effective once Liam Neeson gets to France. That renders the first fifteen to twenty minutes pretty much unnecessary and they accordingly feel much longer.
The second tidbit we fixated on is that Taken pretty much takes the position that "Mass Murder is preferable to Selling People" in moral equivalency. In Commando, Arnold is killing everyone guarding the person who kinapped his daughter and because they're shooting at him. In Rambo, John Rambo gets all medieval on the bad guys because they want to kill missionaries for pretty much no reason and someone hires him to find them.
In Taken, Bryan Mills not only kills the Albanians who kidnapped his daughter, but he pretty much kills anyone he meets before and after that. If you're involved in any way in the human trading business, you're dead meat because Liam Neeson is going to murder you and continue killing. Even if you're just kind of hanging out on a boat, you'll be lucky if he doesn't just throw you overboard. In fact, that's the nicest thing he does to anybody in the second half of the film.
After the Albanian shootout, Taken introduces us to a number of characters simply so Liam Neeson can kill them, and at the end (SPOILER) he gets to go back to America, no questions asked. It was also pointed out that he took advantage of France's health care system beforehand to recoup from being stabbed by an Arab stereotype. Now that's some lesson in morality.
---
Finally, whilst surfing the Playstation Store, I noticed that two movies are inexplicably available in HD. I've never heard of Robot Holocaust before, but I suddenly need to see it and $4.50 doesn't seem so unreasonable.
The other movie available in HD for no apparent reason: Troll 2.
Guess what just made its way onto the Summer Fest lineup. No seriously, take a guess.
If you guessed "Not Troll 2", you are wrong.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
2008 Belated Recap: Bum Rap Movies
When we left off last night, the Cap'n promised to pick up with more movies that I feel didn't get a fair shake. Chances are you were more familiar with these movies than Appaloosa, Man on Wire, Redbelt, or In Bruges. That doesn't mean you saw them, or even planned on seeing them. While I totally understand, as I rendered similar judgments early on, the Cap'n is here to stand up for some more gems from 2008.
Since we're dealing with more than five movies, I'm going to keep it short. I ran long last night and don't expect you to listen to me ramble. Without further ado, on with the show.
Burn After Reading - I know three people who saw this movie and liked it. I know many people who a) didn't like it, or b) didn't see it because they heard bad things. While this is not Lebowski-caliber Coen Brothers, it is every bit as clever as any of their "takes" on genre: in this case the Spy Thriller. Brad Pitt's Chad is like nothing you've seen him do, and he's the tip of the iceberg.
Sukiyaki Western Django - Takeshi Miike's ode to the Spaghetti Western, cut down from 2+ hours in Japan to a lean 90 minutes. To say it's his most accesible film is still a daunting test for viewers, but this movie is just weird enough on all levels to keep you watching.
Kung Fu Panda - Fact: This movie is not Wall-E. Fact: This movie deserved to be nominated. Don't take "it's not as good as Wall-E" to mean "it's not good". Kung Fu Panda is a movie designed to get kids into chop sockey films, and while they're learning fighting styles, fans of the Shaw Brothers are grinning from ear to ear. Seriously, Wall-E's transcendence shouldn't keep you from watching the first really good Dreamworks animated movie.
Youth Without Youth - Francis Ford Coppola returns from a long drought with a challenging, experimental film based on a Mircea Eliade novel. This is not a movie you can tune out and expect to follow, and it really merits a second viewing. Some took that as damning, but Youth Without Youth is worth the time of anyone looking for grown up filmmaking.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno - Kevin Smith's best movie since Clerks. There, I said it. Smith finally balances his dialogue with the story and keeps it funny. Is it the obvious Apatow influence? I don't know, but he's got me interested for the first time in years for his next movie.
Rambo - Gore Fest. Idiotic. Cheeseball. I understand how and why Rambo gets slapped with these labels. I can't disagree necessarily. What they miss is the fact that the violence in Rambo is disturbing and the moral of the film is ambiguous at most. Like Rocky Balboa, Sly Stallone returns to his series and makes a sequel worthy of their respective namesakes.
Son of Rambow - Technically, this is a 2007 movie, but it only opened here in limited release last year. The connection to First Blood and John Rambo is really just the catalyst for the story, but Hammer & Tongs come back from Hitch-Hiker's with a much better followup. Not without its problems, but since you could only find it at Best Buy, almost everyone missed it.
Leatherheads - George Clooney got it hard for this movie, but it's nothing like you've heard. Leatherheads is a movie of the screwball era, one that dares to play it straight without a trace of irony. And it was killed by critics for doing so, unfairly from where I'm sitting. If you like the sensibility of O Brother Where Art Thou, then Leatherheads will be right up your alley.
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer - Now it's my turn to apologize for doubting a movie. I get suspicious when horror directors make it clear they want a franchise. The artwork bothered me, seemed to be lifting shamelessly from the Evil Dead series, and I held out. When I finally watched Jack Brooks, two things were apparent: 1) this movie isn't as wild as you'd think it would be, 2) the next movie will probably be even better. Awkward pacing aside, it's fun. And kudos for giving Robert Englund an actual ROLE and not just a cameo.
The Bank Job - I know Cranpire got bored, and The Bank Job isn't the movie Lion's Gate advertised it to be. The heist is a small portion of the film, the action is really limited to two scenes, and Jason Statham is here to act and not kick ass. If you get past this and watch the whole film, it is a throwback to films of the seventies where the real tension happens after the action set piece. I found it anything but boring.
Be Kind, Rewind - Another movie that was advertised as something it wasn't. I really think people were expecting an entire movie of Jack Black and Mos Def "swede-ing" films with Michel Gondry behind the camera. But that's not how Be Kind, Rewind rolls. It's a love letter to small neighborhoods. The video store is a component to it, but community is the center of Be Kind, Rewind. If you know this going in, it might not be so frustrating. The "swedes" are a very small, if quite funny, component.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall / Role Models / Semi-Pro / Pineapple Express / Step Brothers - Finally, I'm going to lump all of these R rated comedies together because you must have turned away from at least one of them or heard bad things about another.
For the most part, Will Ferrel got the brunt of this, and Semi-Pro and Step Brothers are much better than the rep they got. Both are unrepentantly filthy movies, so if you're easily offended this is not the path to follow. If you don't mind the raunch, these are consistently warped and frequently hilarious movies.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is male wish fufillment, to say the least (particularly for writier / star Jason Segel), but it is pretty funny. It taught me to give Russell Brand the benefit of the doubt after those terrible VMA's, too. He's actually quite appropriate in the movie, and plays a more nuanced character than you'd expect.
Role Models is a hybrid of Apatow-style with the sensibility of David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer), so it deals with more twisted characters than any of the other films above. I'd nearly written it off after Drillbit Taylor, but it was the right decision to see this on Christmas night. I'll own this if for nothing other than the "Beyonce Pouring Sugar on my Dick" drawing.
Pineapple Express divides readers right down the middle. I know many of you who HATE this movie, and just as many who love it. Strangely, it doesn't fall into the "stoner / non-stoner" category you'd expect. I will concede that the pacing and excessive violence really test your capacity to stay with the movie, but it worked for me. I don't think you need to be stoned or love 80s action movies to enjoy Pineapple Express and a healthy understanding of both didn't help a number of you. Shrug.
For me, all of the movies listed above were worth watching (some more than once) despite their bad raps. Are we going to agree on all of them? I doubt it. As stated above, I disagree with several of you on some of these movies, and that's okay. We're not supposed to agree on everything. I mean seriously, how many of you are actually going to watch Death Race? Be honest.
Since we're dealing with more than five movies, I'm going to keep it short. I ran long last night and don't expect you to listen to me ramble. Without further ado, on with the show.
Burn After Reading - I know three people who saw this movie and liked it. I know many people who a) didn't like it, or b) didn't see it because they heard bad things. While this is not Lebowski-caliber Coen Brothers, it is every bit as clever as any of their "takes" on genre: in this case the Spy Thriller. Brad Pitt's Chad is like nothing you've seen him do, and he's the tip of the iceberg.
Sukiyaki Western Django - Takeshi Miike's ode to the Spaghetti Western, cut down from 2+ hours in Japan to a lean 90 minutes. To say it's his most accesible film is still a daunting test for viewers, but this movie is just weird enough on all levels to keep you watching.
Kung Fu Panda - Fact: This movie is not Wall-E. Fact: This movie deserved to be nominated. Don't take "it's not as good as Wall-E" to mean "it's not good". Kung Fu Panda is a movie designed to get kids into chop sockey films, and while they're learning fighting styles, fans of the Shaw Brothers are grinning from ear to ear. Seriously, Wall-E's transcendence shouldn't keep you from watching the first really good Dreamworks animated movie.
Youth Without Youth - Francis Ford Coppola returns from a long drought with a challenging, experimental film based on a Mircea Eliade novel. This is not a movie you can tune out and expect to follow, and it really merits a second viewing. Some took that as damning, but Youth Without Youth is worth the time of anyone looking for grown up filmmaking.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno - Kevin Smith's best movie since Clerks. There, I said it. Smith finally balances his dialogue with the story and keeps it funny. Is it the obvious Apatow influence? I don't know, but he's got me interested for the first time in years for his next movie.
Rambo - Gore Fest. Idiotic. Cheeseball. I understand how and why Rambo gets slapped with these labels. I can't disagree necessarily. What they miss is the fact that the violence in Rambo is disturbing and the moral of the film is ambiguous at most. Like Rocky Balboa, Sly Stallone returns to his series and makes a sequel worthy of their respective namesakes.
Son of Rambow - Technically, this is a 2007 movie, but it only opened here in limited release last year. The connection to First Blood and John Rambo is really just the catalyst for the story, but Hammer & Tongs come back from Hitch-Hiker's with a much better followup. Not without its problems, but since you could only find it at Best Buy, almost everyone missed it.
Leatherheads - George Clooney got it hard for this movie, but it's nothing like you've heard. Leatherheads is a movie of the screwball era, one that dares to play it straight without a trace of irony. And it was killed by critics for doing so, unfairly from where I'm sitting. If you like the sensibility of O Brother Where Art Thou, then Leatherheads will be right up your alley.
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer - Now it's my turn to apologize for doubting a movie. I get suspicious when horror directors make it clear they want a franchise. The artwork bothered me, seemed to be lifting shamelessly from the Evil Dead series, and I held out. When I finally watched Jack Brooks, two things were apparent: 1) this movie isn't as wild as you'd think it would be, 2) the next movie will probably be even better. Awkward pacing aside, it's fun. And kudos for giving Robert Englund an actual ROLE and not just a cameo.
The Bank Job - I know Cranpire got bored, and The Bank Job isn't the movie Lion's Gate advertised it to be. The heist is a small portion of the film, the action is really limited to two scenes, and Jason Statham is here to act and not kick ass. If you get past this and watch the whole film, it is a throwback to films of the seventies where the real tension happens after the action set piece. I found it anything but boring.
Be Kind, Rewind - Another movie that was advertised as something it wasn't. I really think people were expecting an entire movie of Jack Black and Mos Def "swede-ing" films with Michel Gondry behind the camera. But that's not how Be Kind, Rewind rolls. It's a love letter to small neighborhoods. The video store is a component to it, but community is the center of Be Kind, Rewind. If you know this going in, it might not be so frustrating. The "swedes" are a very small, if quite funny, component.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall / Role Models / Semi-Pro / Pineapple Express / Step Brothers - Finally, I'm going to lump all of these R rated comedies together because you must have turned away from at least one of them or heard bad things about another.
For the most part, Will Ferrel got the brunt of this, and Semi-Pro and Step Brothers are much better than the rep they got. Both are unrepentantly filthy movies, so if you're easily offended this is not the path to follow. If you don't mind the raunch, these are consistently warped and frequently hilarious movies.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is male wish fufillment, to say the least (particularly for writier / star Jason Segel), but it is pretty funny. It taught me to give Russell Brand the benefit of the doubt after those terrible VMA's, too. He's actually quite appropriate in the movie, and plays a more nuanced character than you'd expect.
Role Models is a hybrid of Apatow-style with the sensibility of David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer), so it deals with more twisted characters than any of the other films above. I'd nearly written it off after Drillbit Taylor, but it was the right decision to see this on Christmas night. I'll own this if for nothing other than the "Beyonce Pouring Sugar on my Dick" drawing.
Pineapple Express divides readers right down the middle. I know many of you who HATE this movie, and just as many who love it. Strangely, it doesn't fall into the "stoner / non-stoner" category you'd expect. I will concede that the pacing and excessive violence really test your capacity to stay with the movie, but it worked for me. I don't think you need to be stoned or love 80s action movies to enjoy Pineapple Express and a healthy understanding of both didn't help a number of you. Shrug.
For me, all of the movies listed above were worth watching (some more than once) despite their bad raps. Are we going to agree on all of them? I doubt it. As stated above, I disagree with several of you on some of these movies, and that's okay. We're not supposed to agree on everything. I mean seriously, how many of you are actually going to watch Death Race? Be honest.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Blogorium Review: Beyond Borders
The Cap'n is rarely an advocate of skipping class, but I sure wish I'd decided to sit out tonight's class. It wasn't necessarily the Professor's fault. He genuinely believed that the movie he'd rented was about migrant workers in Kansas. But it wasn't.
It was Beyond Borders with Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen, or as I like to call it, White Liberal Guilt: The Movie.
Watching this crap would be bad enough if I hadn't seen it, but unfortunately, I have watched Beyond Borders before (don't ask) and it was every bit as insipid, trite, poorly written and heavy handed as it was the last time. The only thing I noticed more clearly this time around is how cheap the all synthesizer score sounds, which gives the film a "made for tv" quality befitting its otherwise lackluster production values.
For those lucky enough to be out of the loop, Beyond Borders is the story of a rich white American (Jolie) who marries a British dude and then has her eyes opened to the plight of the Third World, so she goes on a travelogue (from Ethiopia to Cambodia to Chechnya) helping people and lusting after world weary Doctor Hunky (Owen).
He has a "seen it all / jaded asshole" quality and she has a "self righteous but doesn't understand how things work" attitude which make for some arguments and misunderstandings until they get it on during a rescue mission across the border to Thailand. Also, while being a Doctor, the guy is also a gunrunner and works with the CIA to assist rebel groups throughout the 80s and 90s. I am not making this shit up.
You should know you're in trouble when a movie like Rambo is more subtle about the political reality of relief efforts than Beyond Borders. Actually, it's pretty funny because Rambo takes the second act of this film and makes it more believable than Beyond Borders manages to, right down to the "villains threatening children and killing heroes" sequence.
The depth of insight goes no further than "white people help poor people but have a hard time doing it because of corruption", and by that I mean that sentence is enacted over and over again without going any further. We get African thugs, Khmer Rouge thugs, Corrupt Cambodian soldiers, ineffective Ethiopian leaders, and Chechnyan terrorists. Oh, and for good measure, a cheating husband so Jolie won't feel guilty hooking up with Owen and having his kid.
I'll spare you the howlingly bad dialogue that Clive Owen has to sell as meaningful, or descriptions of scenes where Jolie stares blankly at someone. Or the Cambodian translator who looks suspiciously Italian. It's just a terrible, terrible movie, unless you REALLY want to know why Angelina Jolie feels the need to collect so many children (on top of the ones she has herself).
Beyond Borders has exactly one thing going for it, and that's *SPOILER* the fact that Angelina Jolie is killed by a landmine in the last ten minutes. It's supposed to be very sad, I guess, but I was laughing because of how badly the film sells it. Clive Owen, being shot to pieces by the terrorists, can't seem to understand why she's standing perfectly still, and we're just waiting for the inevitable. As sick as this sounds to the one or two "normal" people who read this, I took some twisted glee in that particular explosion. No sadness filled my heart. Only relief.
The moral of the story, other than "make sure you know which movie you're renting" is to Watch Rambo Instead. It accomplishes everything Beyond Borders is trying to do, and is just as violent. Also, it's better written, directed, and scored.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Blogorium Review: Rambo
A fair warning: I like Rocky Balboa. I like First Blood, and as cartoony as it becomes, I still enjoy Rambo: First Blood Part II. I can't defend Rambo III, but the good news is that I don't have to. Stallone's Rambo isn't trying to be Part II or III. Just like Rocky Balboa is a direct sequel to Rocky, so too is Rambo to First Blood.
Which is not to say that it's a lot like First Blood. One of the things you need to know is that Stallone carries the mentality of John Rambo from the first film into 2008's Rambo. The other thing you might want to know is that Rambo is not akin to Rocky Balboa in any way: the way each film handles the journey of their title characters is totally different. Rocky Balboa is about hope, and Rambo is not.
The violence in Rambo isn't as cartoony as it gets in the sequels, but there's enough gore and grue to make people coming just for that happy. At the same time, this isn't so much "AWESOME!" violence as it is "Oh Jesus!" violence. Until about halfway into the movie, any scene of violence is there to disturb you. The first time Rambo kills anyone, it's over so quickly you don't see much of anything.
When things get unhinged towards the end, the gore takes it up to 11 in no time at all. Heads get blown off, people's arms and legs are ripped apart by explosions, people are burned and mutilated, and yes, some guy gets his throat ripped out. Slowly. Maybe it was just me, but even when Rambo kills the "big" bad guy, it wasn't a "hell yeah!" moment so much as a "geez!" scene. That must've been what Stallone was going for, because all of the "rah rah" kills are visceral and disgusting. They happen quickly, and when it's over you don't want to linger.
Sylvester Stallone also avoids easy comparisons to Rocky by making John Rambo not just emotionally different, but physically too. Rocky was an over the hill boxer, but he had enough definition to be clear that he was once a fighter. He still has the sense of being chiseled. I can't remember who said it, but Rambo doesn't look like the chiseled stud of Part II or III. Instead, this dude looks like he was cut from a tree with an axe. John Rambo looks like a hulking nightmare hiding out in the jungle, a mass of muscule waiting to spring to action.
I liked Rambo: it's not really on long enough to overstay its welcome (without credits, it's a lean 80 minutes), and it doesn't dwell on Rambo's "down on life" outlook in any way that gets annoying. It's an effective, if exceptionally bleak action movie for most of the runtime, with a strange ending that wants to bookend with the beginning of First Blood. I don't know how I feel about that just yet, but I can safely say that Rambo is as good as Rocky Balboa, if for different reasons.
Which is not to say that it's a lot like First Blood. One of the things you need to know is that Stallone carries the mentality of John Rambo from the first film into 2008's Rambo. The other thing you might want to know is that Rambo is not akin to Rocky Balboa in any way: the way each film handles the journey of their title characters is totally different. Rocky Balboa is about hope, and Rambo is not.
The violence in Rambo isn't as cartoony as it gets in the sequels, but there's enough gore and grue to make people coming just for that happy. At the same time, this isn't so much "AWESOME!" violence as it is "Oh Jesus!" violence. Until about halfway into the movie, any scene of violence is there to disturb you. The first time Rambo kills anyone, it's over so quickly you don't see much of anything.
When things get unhinged towards the end, the gore takes it up to 11 in no time at all. Heads get blown off, people's arms and legs are ripped apart by explosions, people are burned and mutilated, and yes, some guy gets his throat ripped out. Slowly. Maybe it was just me, but even when Rambo kills the "big" bad guy, it wasn't a "hell yeah!" moment so much as a "geez!" scene. That must've been what Stallone was going for, because all of the "rah rah" kills are visceral and disgusting. They happen quickly, and when it's over you don't want to linger.
Sylvester Stallone also avoids easy comparisons to Rocky by making John Rambo not just emotionally different, but physically too. Rocky was an over the hill boxer, but he had enough definition to be clear that he was once a fighter. He still has the sense of being chiseled. I can't remember who said it, but Rambo doesn't look like the chiseled stud of Part II or III. Instead, this dude looks like he was cut from a tree with an axe. John Rambo looks like a hulking nightmare hiding out in the jungle, a mass of muscule waiting to spring to action.
I liked Rambo: it's not really on long enough to overstay its welcome (without credits, it's a lean 80 minutes), and it doesn't dwell on Rambo's "down on life" outlook in any way that gets annoying. It's an effective, if exceptionally bleak action movie for most of the runtime, with a strange ending that wants to bookend with the beginning of First Blood. I don't know how I feel about that just yet, but I can safely say that Rambo is as good as Rocky Balboa, if for different reasons.
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