[BLU-RAY Review] RAMBO
There aren’t many action movie fans who wouldn’t agree that First Blood is a superb movie. And First Blood: Part II is also great. And, for all of it’s faults, I do still enjoy Rambo III. So the news that I would be receiving Rambo on Blu-Ray was greeted very happily by myself as I had been wanting to see it since the cinema release and hadn’t had a chance. Add to that the fact that this is one of the releases that utilise the added capabilities offered by being on Blu-Ray with BD-Live and you have to have the thought that it’s something I’m going to have great fun with (as I am a self-confessed geek as far as special features go!), but does it live up to my expectations, both as a movie and Blu-Ray release?
So first, the movie. Rambo sets you up for whats in store pretty early on to be fair. Opening with news footage of the ongoing civil war in Burma we’re quickly taken to a rice field with Burmese soldiers forcing peasants to across the field after it has been laced with land mines – and sure enough one of the hapless peasants steps on one of the land mines. And then the soldiers casually mow down the rest of the peasants.
Not pleasant but at least you know where the movie is headed in terms of content!
Then we get sent to the serenity of a jungle in Thailand where John Rambo, carrying a little more weight than the last time we saw him, is collecting snakes. When he takes these snakes back to civilisation he is approached by a group of American Christian aid workers who want to hire Rambo to take them into Burma. At first Rambo refuses, but following some gentle persuasion from one of the aid workers, Sarah (played by Julie Benz), he agrees to take them. Following a brutal encounter with some river pirates Rambo tries to get the aid workers to turn around but they refuse and he leaves them in Burma, from where they are going to make their own way home overland.
Of course, it’s not long before the village they are helping gets attacked by soldiers and the aid workers get captured. Rambo is then visited by the head of the church that had sent the aid workers (I’m still not entirely sure how the pastor knew they had been captured) and agrees to accompany a group of mercs into Burma to try and rescue them.
And then all hell gets let loose! There really is no other way to describe it – especially the last part of the movie!
Now, I’ll be honest from the get go here. I enjoyed this movie for what it was. This is an unapologetically violent movie, full of death and destruction, and as such I enjoyed it. It’s not going to win any Oscars for writing, character development or direction but it is a very fun, very violent, war movie.
Rambo is pretty much the character you’d expect him to be. There are no attempts here to really change or push the character in any way that he hasn’t before. Once again he’s trying to live a quiet life but gets drawn back into possibly the only thing he has truly been good at – killing. There’s no existentialism. He hasn’t become a philosopher or anything like that. He’s a simple man who is simply good at killing people, and who is fairly bitter towards the world, and Stallone seems like he could play this character in his sleep.
The rest of the cast were, as a whole, pretty one dimensional. None of the characters really stretched beyond what they needed to be, but the performances were decent enough. Julie Benz, who played ???, who Rambo “connected” with and convinced him to take the missionaries into Burma, was decent enough in her role, even if she didn’t make that much of an impression upon me.
And that can be said about pretty much all of the cast. They gave decent enough performances, they performed their characters well enough, but they were all fairly forgettable once the killing started. And once that started it was all about Rambo himself.
Which brings us to the action. You want big explosions and bloodshed and carnage? Well, you get it here in bucketloads! After the opening sequence with the Burmese soldiers in the paddy field there is a lull in proceedings as the missionaries are introduced and Rambo starts to take them up river, but it isn’t that long before Rambo is killing again. All of the action was very slickly filmed, and there were more than a few moments that had me wincing.
The initial attack on the village leading to the capture of the missionaries has some moments in it that I don’t think I will ever forget, but bear in mind that it was based on actual reports of attacks from Burmese soldiers and they couldn’t actually show everything that has happened.
This movie is unapologetic about it’s depiction of war and death. There is nothing pretty here about someone being killed. It’s shown for the horrific act that it actually is and, even though it is entertainment and meant to be enjoyed (in the context of the movie), it isn’t approached lightly.
As this is the Blu-Ray version, the quality of the picture is really amazing. For instance, the opening sequence with the soldiers and peasants in the paddy field is fairly muted colourwise, until the poor unfortunate steps on the landmine and you get a fountain of red blood. This quality of picture is carried throughout the movie and it really is an exceptional print, maybe some of the night time scenes are a little too “black”, sometimes making it a little hard to make everything out, the muted colour scheme used works very very well and accents the movie’s “gritty” feel and a lot of the time the picture looks very three-dimensional and Blu-Ray more than handles the fast paced action and small details are easy to pick out.
The sound pumping out is also superb, with the dialogue easy to make out and the sounds of guns echoing in your ears.
Yeah, I love this format for the benefits to sound and picture and this is among one of the best I have seen so far!
Special Features
(All of the below are also available on the DVD version but on the Blu-Ray they are presented in 1080p)
Audio Commentary with Sylvester Stallone: This is one of the best commentary tracks I have listened to. Sly Stallone is articulate, thoughtful and very insightful as he discusses the long gestation of the movie, his feelings towards the character and the level of violence depicted onscreen and how he felt that to truly pay tribute to the violence in Burma it had to be depicted as accurately as possible. And there is the usual amount of technical and production chat that you would expect.
It’s a Long Road: The Resurrection of an Icon: (19 minutes) This covers the backstory of the 19 years development of Rambo, including script ideas and scenarios which were discounted for the fourth movie, and is a pretty interesting look at how the project developed.
The Art of War: Completing Rambo: (6 minutes) This details the post-production problems they faced to finish the movie.
A Score to Settle: The Music of Rambo: (7 minutes) A look at the scoring sessions to create the sound of Rambo.
The Weaponry of Rambo: (15 minutes) Sly Stallone and other members of the crew basically fawning over the weaponry used in the movie! Oh yeah, they love their guns!
A Hero’s Welcome: Release and Reception: (10 minutes) A look at the premiere and and initial reactions to the movies release.
Legacy of Despair: The Struggle in Burma: (11 minutes) This gives a more detailed look into the troubled history of Burma and the continuing struggles faced in the country.
Blu-Ray Exclusive Features
Picture-In-Picture Commentary with Sylvester Stallone: This is pretty much the same commentary by Sly Stallone as the audio only commentary above, but this time you get a picture-in-picture image of Sly as he watches the movie and talks about it and branching footage, which interrupts the movie and adds an extra 30 minutes to the running time, as various members of the cast and crew talk about various aspects of casting, shooting the movie, editing it etc. This is my first experience with the Picture-in-Picture commentaries available with Profile 1.1 of Blu-Ray and I have to say that I love it! It really does add to the overall effect of watching the movie.
BD-Live Features: These weren’t available for me to try out, and won’t be until the Blu-Ray is released on Monday, so when I’ve had a chance to check them out after the 23rd I’ll update the review.
Overall, I really enjoyed this disc. The quality of picture and sound on the blu-ray is superb as are the extras and the movie itself, while not the best action movie I have ever seen, was enjoyable for what it was.
If you are a fan of Rambo then I would expect you to enjoy this movie but it might well not be to everyone’s tastes with the amount of violence on show. But, purely from a personal point of view, I enjoyed the hell out of watching it.
7 Responses to “[BLU-RAY Review] RAMBO”
I watched this movie for the first time over the weekend and absolutely loved it. It is truly a throw back to the 80′s action movies where the bad guys are bad and the good guys are badder! There is no emo moping around about how horrible his life is: John Rambo accepts his role fate dealt to him and proves why he is the quintessential action hero. The mercenaries during the boat scene were fun to watch in their interaction with Rambo because you expect him to explode any second and take them all out. My only problem with the movie? **** Semi-spoiler for those who have not seen it… The dick head missionary doctor fiancee lives. Why couldn’t he be the one to have his feet eaten by pigs?!? End semi-spoiler ****
I agree entirely about the head missionary – I’ve never found myself hoping a character would die so early in a movie before!
I’m ashamed to admit it (why, I do not know) but I got sent the R1 DVD for “review” (thanks for beating me to it, coz I really didn’t fancy hitting it again!) and this played much, much, better a second or third time then it did when I originally watched it.
It’s sort of the reverse-Indy 4. I kinda loved that first time out, only liked it the second time. With this, I very nearly hated it first time (check out my review!) but I kinda warmed to it and almost very much liked it a second!
Now, Stallone, give us Cobra 2!
I’m joking Sly, seriously!
Personally I’m hoping for a sequel to Tango & Cash – Tango & Even More Cash
Or how about Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot You Again
Or …
Actually no, I don’t want any of them!
2 Judge 2 Dredd
Over the Top 2.
Nighthawks 2 would be pretty cool though.
Or is that just me?
Just me?
Thought so!
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