Like America, it's both excited by and ashamed of its bloodlust.
Rambo (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:140
Fresh:52
Rotten:88
Average Rating:4.8/10
Consensus: 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.
Rated: 18 [See Full Rating] for strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults, grisly images and language.
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:22-02-2008
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...
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
[More]
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden, Graham McTavish
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden, Graham McTavish, Rey Gallegos, Jake LaBotz, Tim Kang, Ken Howard
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Screenwriter: Sylvester Stallone, Art Monterastelli
Producer: Sylvester Stallone, Avi Lerner, John Thompson, Kevin King
Composer: Brian Tyler
Studio: Lions Gate Films
Reviews for Rambo
... Creates only the facade of a social conscience because the series ran out of relevant things to say after First Blood.
After lying low for 20 years, Rambo massacres 1000 men. Best sequel of the series. I'm looking forward to Rambo V.
A cynical cash-grab, made not because Stallone had some good ideas for the character but because he wanted to capitalize on it.
No matter how reluctant and torn the killer, 'Rambo' is an apologia for brute force.
Watching Rambo and Sarah on screen together, one is reminded less of Rick and Ilsa and more of Kong and Ann Darrow.
The lack of irony or humor -- except for the occasional unintended chuckles provoked by certain platitudinal one-liners -- here separates the violence from Tarantino films or graphic novel adaptations that often use their bloodfests to parody or to bemuse
As the current obsession with Reagan suggests, it's back to fantasyland!
Rambo shows Stallone ran out of ideas after penning 2006's Rocky Balboa.
'Thanks to my plastic surgeon, now I literally do have the Eye of the Tiger!' exclaimed Sly. 'Poor tiger!'
The very brutal violence that opens the film casts a pall over the very movie-fake violence that follows.
Damned if Stallone doesn't get us rooting for Rambo to kick bad-guy butt one more time, the same way we cheered on Rocky's improbable return.
I wonder if he'll remake "Rhinestone" or "Stop! Or my Mom Will Shoot" next?
It loses all meaning and becomes a numbing barrage of blood. We end up wondering how the special effects were achieved instead of investing in the outcome.
As a piece of crude, ejaculatory guerrilla pulp, the movie is at the head of its class (or lack thereof).
Latest News for Rambo
September 08, 2009:
Stallone Releases Synopsis, First Poster for Rambo 5 ![]()
You heard that the fifth "Rambo" was going to pit the titular hero against a drug-dealing slave ring, but as it turns out, Sylvester Stallone's plans for the next sequel are a... More...
August 31, 2009:
Fifth Rambo Gets a Green Light ![]()
Sylvester Stallone will "fight his way through human traffickers and drug lords to rescue a young girl abducted near the U.S.-Mexico border" in the fifth "Rambo" installment,... More...
January 29, 2009:
Stallone Mulling Over Another Rambo ![]()
Are you ready for more Rambo? Sylvester Stallone is -- and he's just told Extra that the only thing he needs to do is decide "whether to do it in America or a foreign country." More...
July 28, 2008:
RT on DVD: Harold & Kumar, Doomsday and Dark City Director's Cut
Since we're all still recovering from Comic-Con 2008, and tons of new home video details dropped at the Largest Nerd Gathering in the World, it's time for RT on DVD: Geek... More...
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