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MOVIES / ON DVD / RAMBO
Rambo

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Rambo (2008)

33%
25%
77%
N/A
N/A
N/A
33 %
Reviews Counted: 127 Fresh: 42  Rotten:85 Average Rating: 4.7/10
 
Consensus: The excessive violence is more nauseating than entertaining. Sylvester Stallone knows how to stage action sequences, but the movie's uneven pacing and excessive violence (even for the franchise) is more nauseating than entertaining. more
 
Rated: 18
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Theatrical Release: 22-08-2008
Synopsis:
Twenty years after the last film in the series, John Rambo (SYLVESTER STALLONE) has retreated to northern Thailand, where he's running a longboat on the Salween River. On the nearby Thai-Burma (Myanmar) border, the world's longest-running civil war, the Burmese-Karen conflict, rages... [More]
Twenty years after the last film in the series, John Rambo (SYLVESTER STALLONE) has retreated to northern Thailand, where he's running a longboat on the Salween River. On the nearby Thai-Burma (Myanmar) border, the world's longest-running civil war, the Burmese-Karen conflict, rages into its 60th year. But Rambo, who lives a solitary, simple life in the mountains and jungles fishing and catching poisonous snakes to sell, has long given up fighting, even as medics, mercenaries, rebels and peace workers pass by on their way to the war-torn region.

That all changes when a group of human rights missionaries search out the "American river guide" John Rambo. When Sarah (JULIE BENZ) and Michael Bennett (PAUL SCHULZE) approach him, they explain that since last year's trek to the refugee camps, the Burmese military has laid landmines along the road, making it too dangerous for overland travel. They ask Rambo to guide them up the Salween and drop them off, so they can deliver medical supplies and food to the Karen tribe. After initially refusing to cross into Burma, Rambo takes them, dropping off Sarah, Michael and the aid workers...

Less than two weeks later, pastor Arthur Marsh (KEN HOWARD) finds Rambo and tells him the aid workers did not return and the embassies have not helped locate them. He tells Rambo he's mortgaged his home and raised money from his congregation to hire mercenaries to get the missionaries, who are being held captive by the Burmese army. Although the United States military trained him to be a lethal super soldier in Vietnam, decades later Rambo's reluctance for violence and conflict are palpable, his scars faded, yet visible. However, the lone warrior knows what he must do...

Sylvester Stallone writes, directs and stars as RAMBO, filmed on location in and around Chiang Mai, Thailand. Also starring are Julie Benz (Dexter), Paul Schulze (The Sopranos), Matthew Marsden (Resident Evil: Extinction, Black Hawk Down), Graham McTavish (HBO's Rome), Rey Gallegos (American Wedding), Tim Kang ("Third Watch"), Jake La Botz (Ghost World), Maung Maung Khin and Ken Howard. RAMBO is produced by Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton and John Thompson. Executive producers Randall Emmett, George Furla. Executive Producers Jon Feltheimer, Peter Block, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein. Executive Producers Andreas Thiesmeyer, Josef Lautenschlager. Executive Producers Danny Dimbort, Boaz Davidson, Trevor Short. --© Lionsgate [Less]

Genre: Action/Adventure

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden, Graham McTavish, Rey Gallegos

Director: Sylvester Stallone
Screenwriter: Sylvester Stallone, Art Monterastelli
Producer: Sylvester Stallone, Avi Lerner, John Thompson, Kevin King
Composer: Brian Tyler

DVD Info

Release:

Mar 5, 2010

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • note: This version includes an iTunes digital copy, playable on iPods and other Apple devices.
  • Region 1
  • 2-Disc Set - Keep Case
  • Disc 1: RAMBO: Feature Presentation
  • Widescreen- 2.35

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
  • Subtitles - English, Spanish

Additional Release Material:

  • Audio Commentary - Sylvester Stallone - Director/Star
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Featurettes - 1. "A Hero's Welcome: Release and Reaction"
  • 2. "A Score to Settle: The Music of RAMBO"
  • 3. "It's a Long Road: Resurrection of an Icon"
  • 4. "Legacy of Despair: The Struggle in Burma"
  • 5. "The Art of War: Completing RAMBO"
  • 6. "The Weaponry of RAMBO"
  • Disc 2: Digital Copy

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Ratings Image

The hero’s iconic inertia is photographed against molten skies or Judgment Day sunsets, providing moments of mythic repose between the pell-mell battle scenes.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 09:52 AM
Nigel Andrews
Financial Times
Ratings Image

Makes First Blood look like Bambi.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 09:44 AM
Sun Online
Ratings Image

Little more than a cartoon, Rambo caters only for those still smitten by the rat-a-tat of continuous gunfire.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 09:33 AM
David Gritten
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

At times there is something weirdly comforting about the film's no-frills, fundamentalist zeal.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 09:12 AM
Xan Brooks
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

The fourth and, amazingly, the most meat-headed adventure yet of the killing machine John Rambo can safely be recommended to people who hate intelligence and love exploding body parts.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 09:01 AM
Christopher Tookey
Daily Mail [UK]
Ratings Image

Stallone may believe that he can turn back the clock to the golden era of his career, but I'm not convinced that this kind of brutal, bellicose naivety sits so well with audiences any more.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 08:42 AM
Wendy Ide
Times [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

On one level Rambo delivers what you’re expecting: hard-to-hear dialogue married to hard-to-watch action. But this outing is uncomfortably gruesome and blatantly manipulative. Despite grander aspirations, only leather-tough mayhem-lovers will be satisfied

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 07:58 AM
Tony Horkins
Total Film
Ratings Image

It’s far from a perfect movie, and some will get too caught up in the debate over the use of such a war as the subtext for a popcorn actioner, but Stallone has delivered the movie Rambo fans would have asked for.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 07:35 AM
Rich Phippen
Sky Movies
Ratings Image

Rocky Balboa eventually aged gracefully but Rambo remains mired in gratuitous violence, dubious ideology and cheap sentiment. If anyone sees Stallone contemplating further adventures, don't push him.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 07:14 AM
Leigh Singer
Channel 4 Film
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Less a war movie than a turkey shoot in a ketchup factory.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 06:47 AM
Jamie Russell
BBC
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Ratings Image

90 minutes of violence. No more, no less.

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 03:42 AM
David Jenkins
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Rambo could have been a satisfying romp - wherein bad dialogue and cardboard characters can be forgiven - but for the sin of making the main man step to the sidelines in favour of charisma-free fillers. Bad move, Sly...

Full Review | Comment
02/22/08 03:25 AM
Roberto Sadovski
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

It's unsubtle filmmaking, laying out every nuance for us and playing around with some pretty serious ideas without digging very deep.

Full Review | Comment
02/11/08 11:21 PM
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall
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Suspiciously wrinkle-resistant Stallone in comeback, a Rambo in serious need of anger management and not too shy to get into a little ripping out of throats with bare hands and selective disemboweling too.

Full Review | Comment
05/13/08 05:51 PM
Prairie Miller
NewsBlaze
Ratings Image

We need John Rambo. In an age of mistrust and bureaucratic cowardice, it is comforting to know there is a hulking great protector to keep the world in check.

Full Review | Comment
05/13/08 04:14 PM
Chris Laverty
Mansized
Ratings Image

The film does for the Myanmar genocide what I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry did for same-sex marriage...

Full Review | Comment
05/01/08 05:24 PM
Alonso Duralde
MSNBC
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Luckily, Rambo's years away from war haven't dulled his ability to rip out a man's throat with his bare hands.

Full Review | Comment
04/15/08 06:53 PM
Mike Sage
Peterborough This Week
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'Rambo' is pure adrenaline, a frenzied rush into the heart of a jungle where the prevailing darkness is far more horrific than anything Kurtz could have imagined.

Full Review | Comment
04/09/08 11:08 PM
Rossiter Drake
San Francisco Examiner
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However you parse the character's evolution, Rambo the film shows a peculiar understanding of changes in the industry.

Full Review | Comment
03/21/08 09:16 AM
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters
Ratings Image

Quando comemorei o retorno de Stallone à boa forma artística, não imaginei que empregaria sua recém-reconquistada influência para realizar algo tão abominável quanto este Rambo IV.

Full Review | Comment
03/01/08 01:44 AM
Pablo Villaca
Cinema em Cena
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