Rambo

The renowned humanist John Rambo is back with everything that made him famous in his glory days. There are more wrinkles and Rambo is no longer a handsome and brutal killer, but just a brutal killer, yet at the same time everything is compensated by a huge effort to prove that even at the blessed age of 60 a man can be an untouchable action icon. I don't know about you, but for me the 80 minutes full of brisk action, blood and flying limbs, in which the first ten minutes are spent talking and the rest uncompromisingly destroying "unfortunate" enemies, was proof enough. Sly rulez!! (2012-08-14)

It’s been a very, very long time since I regretted that a film about nothing other than killing isn’t longer. The last Rambo is a B-movie with Russian digital effects shrouded in nostalgia that is more physically intense than any megalomaniacal blockbuster by Michael Bay. Two spectacular scenes (the first ascent with a bow, the bomb), perfect genre purity and the character of John Rambo – that’s what it’s all about and it’s more than enough. “Don’t say anything and just go.” Nothing more needs to be said about the closing musical motif by Jerry Goldsmith. Had Stallone added more minutes and developed the characters more, this could have been the best action film of the year. (2008-02-25)

That's a massacre. At first, the movie didn't seem that good to me, but now I fully appreciate its qualities. The new Rambo is not just about killing anymore, but about the personality of John himself, who, although he went through some emotional turmoil in the original trilogy, Stallone managed to incredibly well write and portray it here, which is definitely not common for sequels of old legends. If Arnie introduced Terminator in this way, no one would probably be upset...I'm not a big fan of Rambo I and prefer to remember the others, but Rambo IV was incredibly well done...80%. (2014-03-22)

The eighties strike back! The most brutal pensioner on the planet makes a return, this time staying somewhere half way between the believable rawness of part one and the B-movie over-the-topness of part two. What it lacks in terms of story, it makes up for with high marks for style of presentation. It’s true that at the beginning you laugh a couple of times over occasional laughable dialogs “worthy of thought", but you have fun all the same. However, after the “metaphor" with the box, it all reverts to its old ways. Just considerably more brutally. Much more brutally. The elderly ferryman is as efficient at his work as he was when he was young, and especially Rambo’s fighting symbiosis with the School Boy could have done with a greater number of scenes. Although Stallone as a screenwriter was disappointing, as a director he maintains solid craft until the very end by scattering images reminiscent of past episodes throughout this movie. And as an actor? A classic. One expression, a hard stare, muscles pumped up with steroids (he really needs that canon at the end because he couldn’t even put the logs he has instead of fingers on any regular trigger), excellent physique and his one and only acting invention of “half-closed eyes" for expressing sadness in scenes where he isn’t allowed to kill anybody. An A-grade brutal B-movie with a rejuvenated testosterone-pumped mastodon with all the trimmings. And if you don’t like that, then, in Rambo’s words: Go home. This makes the fourth Rambo the second best in the series. Who would have believed that about two years ago? --- P.S.: Thank you for the strangely missing episode number which made the Hardened Viewer festival at the Aero movie theater in Prague even more fun than expected. (2008-02-19)

Sylvester Stallone is a special case. He started as an actor in a pornographic film and the professional critique expresses itself about him in the style of "master of monosyllabic sentences" or "master of one expression," but Stallone doesn't mind at all, and neither do his fans. For his work in front of the camera, which I wouldn't call acting, he has received an incredible amount of Golden Raspberries for worst acting performances. He has won it ten times and has been nominated thirty times. Among other things, I think he won one for Rambo 2. He is an honorable holder of the title of Worst Actor of the Century. Even the first Rambo movie is rough in terms of his acting performance, but it was compensated by a relatively decent screenplay that dealt with the post-war syndrome, and several character actors were involved. This Rambo has none of that; it's unnecessary to talk about the screenplay. The acting performances are practically non-existent, and the whole film can be reduced to an endless series of fight scenes in the most fairy-tale-like spirit of action movies. I didn't enjoy this kind of fairy-tale story for adults even when I was fifteen. It lacks even the slightest satire or realism. It's just a celebration of killing. It has relatively decent camera work and editing, so I'll give it one star for that. Overall impression: 15%. This kind of film is interesting more from a sociological point of view. People go to see it for the same reason that viewers once flocked to gladiator matches or why professional boxing or wrestling matches are so popular. It's not worth pondering why such productions have such high ratings and effortlessly defeat Oscar-winning films; it's more proof that any rankings are purely indicative, and one must continuously engage their brain. (2008-03-10)