First let me qualify my appraisal of Rambo by saying I love Rambo: First Blood despite it's many flaws. Flaws that include the ultra-cheesy Colonel Trautman and the fact the film smashes the viewer over the head with its rightwing political poppycock. All it was missing was a Rebel Flag, or a coloured or homosexual women's rights protester being castrated or shot in the head in every other scene to really capture the rage of an emasculated white America in need of a hero like Rambo...
That said it First Blood was a tense actioner and an early character study of the (now clichéd) haunted, war-weary reclusive, Ex-Vietnam, elite special forces dude fated to kick arse... once again.
Where First Blood was bright and original, leaving aside the fore mentioned rightwing rhetoric, Rambo(4) fulfills it's obligations to the subsequent sequels, continuing their legacy, and making only passing nods to the spirit of the first film and offers very little to merit praise - save the massive bodycount and computer generated gore.
The violence of Rambo was a talking, and selling, point. Sure war films have become more "realistic" with their violence recently with big films like Private Ryan, Thin Red, Black Hawk. However the increased violence has served the purpose of focusing the audience on the harrowing circumstances of war and is matched by the film-makers attempt to render the strain of combat upon the combatants involved and their relationships.
Rambo makes abstract gestures at humanity that might be confused as genuine but it is ALL about the violence. Like the character Rambo the film feels fake, his motivation feels fake, the events seem ludirous. But according to Sly this is supposed to highlight the very REAL suffering of the people of Myanmar..? To whom is this message intended? Most of the people that are attracted to such a stupid, violent movie won't give a rat's arse about little 'Chinamen' in Myanmar. Such viewers actually believed Rambo sorted out their problems for them in Rambo 1,2 & 3 already.
Rambo certainly delivers the violence but the Rambo of 2008 is not the Rambo of 1984. Firstly Stallone looks like a smooth plastic action figure that has been put in the oven to melt and contort. I doubt Rambo (the character) would have gone in for unnaturally distorting plastic surgery)...
I appreciate the spirit of the project - presenting ultra-violent action because modern warfare involves ultra-violence. often distorted by media and Washington spin into some kind of sterile, clean affair for the boob-tube masses. The problem is Rambo is just as distorted and warped in it's depiction.
The American, Rambo, only helps the Myanmarans because a big-titted blonde American woman is scripted to inspire pathos in us, the viewers by her concern for the poor Myanmarans. This is puke. Rambo goes in and kills all the evil Myanmarans so they stop killing the good Myanmarans.
So once again a weak, coloured people require the services of the big white American 'cock' to come and sort out the other, weak, coloured, but distinctly evil, coloured people.
Of course it is fascistic, violent pap, hell that is fine, but why do we need the tears of a white American woman, or Rambo, to make this plot work and the Myanmarans achieve their freedom, ostensibly from themselves...!!??
Answer: Hollywood.
That said it First Blood was a tense actioner and an early character study of the (now clichéd) haunted, war-weary reclusive, Ex-Vietnam, elite special forces dude fated to kick arse... once again.
Where First Blood was bright and original, leaving aside the fore mentioned rightwing rhetoric, Rambo(4) fulfills it's obligations to the subsequent sequels, continuing their legacy, and making only passing nods to the spirit of the first film and offers very little to merit praise - save the massive bodycount and computer generated gore.
The violence of Rambo was a talking, and selling, point. Sure war films have become more "realistic" with their violence recently with big films like Private Ryan, Thin Red, Black Hawk. However the increased violence has served the purpose of focusing the audience on the harrowing circumstances of war and is matched by the film-makers attempt to render the strain of combat upon the combatants involved and their relationships.
Rambo makes abstract gestures at humanity that might be confused as genuine but it is ALL about the violence. Like the character Rambo the film feels fake, his motivation feels fake, the events seem ludirous. But according to Sly this is supposed to highlight the very REAL suffering of the people of Myanmar..? To whom is this message intended? Most of the people that are attracted to such a stupid, violent movie won't give a rat's arse about little 'Chinamen' in Myanmar. Such viewers actually believed Rambo sorted out their problems for them in Rambo 1,2 & 3 already.
Rambo certainly delivers the violence but the Rambo of 2008 is not the Rambo of 1984. Firstly Stallone looks like a smooth plastic action figure that has been put in the oven to melt and contort. I doubt Rambo (the character) would have gone in for unnaturally distorting plastic surgery)...
I appreciate the spirit of the project - presenting ultra-violent action because modern warfare involves ultra-violence. often distorted by media and Washington spin into some kind of sterile, clean affair for the boob-tube masses. The problem is Rambo is just as distorted and warped in it's depiction.
The American, Rambo, only helps the Myanmarans because a big-titted blonde American woman is scripted to inspire pathos in us, the viewers by her concern for the poor Myanmarans. This is puke. Rambo goes in and kills all the evil Myanmarans so they stop killing the good Myanmarans.
So once again a weak, coloured people require the services of the big white American 'cock' to come and sort out the other, weak, coloured, but distinctly evil, coloured people.
Of course it is fascistic, violent pap, hell that is fine, but why do we need the tears of a white American woman, or Rambo, to make this plot work and the Myanmarans achieve their freedom, ostensibly from themselves...!!??
Answer: Hollywood.