Sylvester Stallone returns, older, tougher and more incomprehensible than ever, in the latest installment of the Rambo franchise. Exactly what Sly thinks he's accomplishing by rehashing the hits of his halcyon youth is beyond me - but clearly, there's something of an audience for these films, so why not? While Rocky Balboa was at least mildly diverting, re-capturing some of the spirit of the original, Rambo is a blood-soaked, utterly brainless film with nothing to offer but loads of CGI-aided ultra-violence.
John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is still, after all these years, an embittered man who can't forget and move on from his traumatic 'Nam experiences. Living in Thailand and working as, I dunno, a boat man or something, he reluctantly aids a group of pacifist Christian mercenaries (Julie Benz and Paul Schulze) in a trip to war-torn Myanmar to aid victims of the government repression. Low and behold, our misguided missionaries are soon captives of the vicious, evil, rapacious government troops (who love nothing more than cutting off old lady's arms and throwing babies into fire) who for some reason don't kill them. Rambo makes another trip, this time accompanied by a team of loud-mouthed but largely ineffectual and wimpy mercenaries. Long story short: bullets and arrows fly, entrails are ripped out, the screen is spattered with ridiculous CGI-augmented gore, and all is right with the world.
There really isn't much to discuss with Rambo, except that it's shit on an unimaginable scale. The first three films at least had some message or characterization, even if they were cheesy at times. But this time, clocking it at barely 90 minutes (10 of them are credits), the movie neatly dispenses with character and plot, and focuses entirely on the blood-'n'-guts factor. The violence here is ridiculously extreme - Rambo rips out people's windpipes and entrails, heads explode, bodies are lacerated by .50 machine-gun fire, Burmese are raped and mutilated, people are blowed up by mortar rounds, grenades, and claymores - and it's not even realistic or enjoyable because most of it is augmented by CGI. Stallone's direction is horridly inept, using rapid cutting that would make Michael Bay have a seizure, not to mention making the scenes in question near-impossible to follow.
What about our characters? Rambo is the same epigrammatic anti-social scoundrel who kills people more or less because he's good at it. The missionaries are whiny wimps who are apparently here to show that pacifism sucks. The mercenaries are a slightly more colorful bunch, with Graham McTavish fun as their inventively profane leader, but they are effectively impotent clods who contribute nothing to Rambo's mission but a lot of profanity and whining (and more people to rescue at the climax). The Burmese, be they victims or victimizers, don't have even pathetic attempts at characterizations, although we do learn that the Evil Leader (Maung Maung Khin) is gay. It's just impossible to take any of these seriously, but it's not even entertaining on a base, "look at these people getting machine gunned" way. It's just pathetic, though a few unintentional laughs may be had along the way.
Is the movie somehow important because it deals with a real-life situation - the repressive regime of Than Shwe? Hardly. It's done in such a cartoonish, tertiary way that it overlooks the point. And in any case, there's no real attempt to exploring the issue - it's just a backdrop. This movie could have been set anywhere - Darfur, Tibet, even Iraq - and been largely the same film. The Burmese army are pretty much more faceless dudes for Rambo to waste. Rambo's "violence solves everything" policy is a bit hard to swallow too, but then no one comes to these films for the politics (I hope).
What more can be said about Rambo? Even Michael Bay and Uwe Boll would find it incoherent and poorly made. Even Quentin Tarantino would find it excessively, ridiculously violent. Even Keanu Reeves and Chuck Norris would laugh at Sly's excuse for a performance. Even Aung San Suu Kyi would find the portrayal of the Burmese government laughably over-the-top. Even Paul Wolfowitz would probably blanch at the thick-headed bellicosity displayed in Rambo's style of foreign policy. And even fans of 300 would find the movie cartoonish and ridiculous.
Well, on that last count... maybe not.
No comments:
Post a Comment