|
|
|
Rambo
III
(1988)
 
In this film, Vietnam veteran John Rambo (Sylvester
Stallone) is living in a Buddhist monastery in
Thailand, when he is approached by his old friend
Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) who asks him to take
part in a dangerous mission in Afghanistan, to help
Afghan rebels fight against the Soviet army who have
invaded the country. When Rambo refuses, Trautman
goes ahead with the mission anyway and is soon
captured. Rambo decides the only thing to do is to go
to Afghanistan and rescue his friend.
This is the second and, so far, the worst of the
sequels to 1982's First Blood, which introduced John Rambo to the world. From the embittered
veteran of the fairly impressive original, the
character of Rambo has completely changed into a
pumped-up superman who seems to take on the entire
Soviet army almost single-handed.
For a while this
held the world record as the most violent film, and in
fact there are just so many explosions, shootings,
stabbings and beatings, it soon becomes quite dull.
Of course, the film has inevitably dated, although,
apparently, the situation in Afghanistan depicted in
the film was fairly accurate to what was going on at
the time. Obviously of course, all the politics in
the film soon give way to Stallone blowing stuff up.
This is the kind of stuff that he really does well,
and he has always been fairly good in the part,
although in this film more than ever he looks like a
He-Man action figure.
Rambo III is a prime example of the kind of
action movie that they seemed to churn out in the 80s
but that really seems to have fallen out of favour in
the past twenty-odd years—the kind of non-stop
action, one-man-army against a horde of villains
films, which gave actors like Stallone, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris some of their best known roles. Taken
for what it is this is kind of dumb fun, and action
fans will no doubt find it enjoyable enough. However
the plot runs along crushingly predictable lines, with
plenty of events that completely stretch credulity to
breaking point. On the plus side, the plentiful action
scenes are fairly well-handled, and there are some
pretty spectacular sequences, but the film remains
extremely sub-average.
Following after his recent Rocky Balboa, a fourth Rambo film, John
Rambo, is scheduled for release in 2008.
-Robert
Foster
|
|
|
|
All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
|
|
 |
Director:
Peter
MacDonald
Writer: Sylvester Stallone, Sheldon Lettich, David Morrell
Starring: Sylvester
Stallone, Richard Crenna, Marc de Jonge, Kurtwood Smith, Spiros Focás
Distributor: TriStar
Pictures
Runtime: 101
min
Rating: R
Release Date: May
25, 1988
|
|
 |
|
