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Rambo

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Rambo (2008)

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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

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Reviews for Rambo

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101 - 120 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >> >|
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This time, it's impersonal.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
01/25/08
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
New York Post

Torture porn probably makes this movie seem quaint.

Full Review Source: Premiere Magazine | comment Comment
01/25/08
Eric Alt
Eric Alt
Premiere Magazine

Stallone is smart enough -- or maybe dumb enough, though I tend to think not -- to present the mythic dimensions of the character without apology or irony. Welcome back.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
01/25/08
A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A brutal, insanely excessive successor to grindhouse pictures of yore.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
01/25/08
Maitland McDonagh
Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide

He's still dirty, ripped and rough around all the right edges. Unfortunately, it feels as if we're drawn back to the theater to fill Hollywood's pockets in exchange for bouts of purely gratuitous violence without a strong plotline.

Full Review Source: HollywoodChicago.com | comment Comment
01/25/08
Adam Fendelman
Adam Fendelman
HollywoodChicago.com

It's a quick, stupefying movie but a fun one and a showcase for the latest in squib technology.

Full Review Source: CHUD | comment Comment
01/25/08
Nick Nunziata
Nick Nunziata
CHUD

Talk about mixed movie messages -- I fear the more important part of the movie gets buried in the bloodshed. You could say that Rambo shoots himself in the foot.

Full Review Source: Christianity Today | comment Comment
01/25/08
Russ Breimeier
Russ Breimeier
Christianity Today

Rambo is exactly the film you want it to be. It has little dialogue, plenty of action, and a nice load of blood and guts splattered throughout.

Full Review Source: Bronsonfive | comment Comment
01/25/08
Michael Ferraro
Michael Ferraro
Bronsonfive

For those who loved all those idiot action films of the '80s (or want to know what they were like), Rambo is the real deal.

Full Review Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette | comment Comment
01/25/08
Daniel M. Kimmel
Daniel M. Kimmel
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

All we get is unintentionally hilarious dialogue in which the characters speak lines that not only seem to have been torn straight from the tag lines of movie posters, they seem to have been selected exclusively from films that went direct-to-video.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
01/25/08
Peter Sobczynski
Peter Sobczynski
eFilmCritic.com

At its best when it considers the shell of a man its hero has become; the ways that war and violence have become a part of his being, and what that has done to him.

Full Review Source: Film Blather | comment Comment
01/24/08
Eugene Novikov
Eugene Novikov
Film Blather

MelGibsonly violent, with a higher bodycount than the other three flicks - put together!

Full Review Source: Montreal Film Journal | comment Comment
01/24/08
Kevin N. Laforest
Kevin N. Laforest
Montreal Film Journal

Has the gritty realism of the first film and a sadder mood for our hero but still continues Rambo as a soldier for hire involved in a standard plot.

Full Review Source: Mark Reviews Movies | comment Comment
01/24/08
Mark Dujsik
Mark Dujsik
Mark Reviews Movies

One of the most grotesque, gruesome and gory movies you will ever see. I started having 'Nam flashbacks, and I wasn't even born then. I need to rent Cinderella, so I can feel clean again.

Full Review Source: WaffleMovies.com | comment Comment
01/24/08
Willie Waffle
Willie Waffle
WaffleMovies.com

the action here is repetitive, derivative, and clunky. Then there's the subtext, which embodies enough jingoistic Imperialism to make Kipling puff up his chest with pride

Full Review Source: Killer Movie Reviews | comment Comment
01/24/08
Andrea Chase
Andrea Chase
Killer Movie Reviews

Stallone's previous film, Rocky Balboa (2006), was a highly personal and surprisingly touching film. But Rambo shows no such justification for its existence.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
01/24/08
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Rambo is what it is and, like Rocky Balboa, does it with the spirit of its predecessors.

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
01/24/08
Robin Clifford
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews

...fans of the [action] genre flat-out owe it to themselves to check out the movie theatrically (if only to encourage the studios to quit making watered-down garbage like Hitman and Live Free or Die Hard).

Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | comment Comment
01/24/08
David Nusair
David Nusair
Reel Film Reviews

The movie is neither cathartic nor entertaining.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
01/24/08
Stephanie Zacharek
Stephanie Zacharek
Salon.com

A literal goulash of gore, and I was quite taken with the fearlessness of it all. The overall responsibility of the film is open for debate, but nobody can say that Stallone didn't reach for the bloodied brass ring with this splendidly bonkers concoction.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
01/24/08
Brian Orndorf
Brian Orndorf
eFilmCritic.com
 
 
101 - 120 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >> >|
all

Latest News for Rambo

September 08, 2009: Stallone Releases Synopsis, First Poster for Rambo 5 Opens in new window
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 Opens in new window
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 Opens in new window
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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