Saw Rambo: First Blood Part II. It was a perfect film for the Vietnam war. An utterly pointless, ugly, confusing quagmire that no one wanted except a few really war-hungry Americans. It's nominally about Rambo (America) vs the Vietcong but is really another chapter in America's ongoing feud with the Russians (who, it turns out, are the real bad guys all along.) The film opens with Rambo being recruited out of prison to do some really bad-ass running around. He asks the general who's recruiting him "do we get to win this time?" To which the general smiles and says "of course, my darling boy, you get to do whatever you like in the magical land of make-believe."
The film operates as a sort of action-horror with Stallone as the monster, sneaking up on unsuspecting people and suddenly murdering them. Gone is the non-violent protagonist of the first Rambo film. True to its horror-film roots, the sexually active are punished and the monster moves silkily through the shadows. Innocent bystanders are mowed down en mass by thermonuclear-tipped arrows. Utter nonsense.
The film has some message about how shitty it was of the US gov to abandon POW in Vietnam after the war and fine, yes that was shitty, but this message is soon forgotten after Stallone delivers some overwrought monologue about how he wishes America would love its veterans. This is a great point to make, I love it, but why does it have to come out of Stallone's half-paralyzed sneer? Ugh. I didn't like this film.
No comments:
Post a Comment