- directed by Sylvester Stallone
After a group of Christian missionaries get captured by a group of ruthless Burmese militant radicals, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo joins a group of mercenaries sent to their rescue.
What can I say? This movie is good for what it is, which is a mindless, comically violent, popcorn action flick. It's gore porn. It's what I wanted and it's what I was given. Though, this movie suffers from what some porno flicks suffer from as well, which is a futile effort to piece together some semblance of a story with horrible actors and worse dialogue. It just doesn't work on that level. The first 20-minutes or so of the movie are excruciating to sit through for this reason. Once it moves out of that space, the movie recovers. You get what you pay for: tons of action sequences, tons of gruesome deaths, etc. Pure violence. Ultimately this movie will prove to be an empty experience if that's something you're just not looking for because it's lacking in everything else a proper film should deliver on.
6.5/10 Good ol' fashion Rambo action. ;)
DS333, satisfied.
* Spoilers *
I love it... it's not enough to convey that the leader of the Burmese militants is the epitome of evil through the wildly violent execution sequences so you have to make him a pedophile... but not just any pedophile, a gay pedophile. 'Cause we all know the root of all evil and twisted perversion is homosexuality, right?. :P I'm not offended by something like that, but it's... it's so misleading. I think for a lot of people they think those phenomena are tightly interrelated, which is so not the case. Even my use of the term gay pedophile is improper because it puts emphasis on something that shouldn't even brought into the discussion. The focus is on pedophilia... the idea of preference in that vein is so wholly superficial. I know that, but I know so many people don't. He's now the fag, the fag who loves boys. Kill the fag! Die you evil fag!!! It's so ridiculous. And in the way that these sort of things filter into our systems it's done in the most heinous fashion, subtly. It's not overt. It's not a shout, but a whisper. And I find that whispers tend to linger more than anything else. And look, like I said... I'm not offended by this, or anything really, but it's something I'm aware of. I just thought it was funny... funny-interesting.
Okay, so I was proof-reading this... giving it one last read-through before I posted it and something didn't ring true. By saying I'm not offended I might infer that I'm not bothered by it, which I obviously am. But I'm also putting it into perspective. It's not the biggest thing in the world, not the greatest slight. I haven't lost sleep thinking about it or anything. But it's there... I've thought about it. It irks me. That type of thing usually does. Not the specific message. Although there is something to that. I mean it was a choice to make. It could've easily been a girl, why a boy? They decided to tap into this well of fear and ignorance. I mean don't we have enough to put up with without having these sort of messages being slipped under the social subconscious? That's where I have a problem I guess. The nature of delivery, it was very sly. A crafty use of subtext, a Trojan Horse. Almost alludes to a war of ideologies. And that's unfortunate. I would hope I wouldn't have to wage one on that front.
But the thing is... I keep coming back to the idea that this is nothing, which I firmly believe it is. It would be stupid of me to say that Sylvester Stallone wouldn't be the guy to push that type of agenda simply because I don't know him. He might very well be a rabid homophobe, I don't know. I would like to think he's not... might feel that he's not. Regardless of that fact, that choice still speaks to something. And if someone were to push an agenda like that, to demonize me... this would be the perfect way to do it. You'd push your message while making me seem hypersensitive, reactionary, paranoid... basically Looney Tunes at the same time. But I'm not. I just notice these things. I know the score.
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