Warning: We apoligise for the length some of these reviews are becoming, especially this one, but we like to be thorough and Rambo deserves an ultimate review..

Twenty years after Rambo’s last bloodthirsty tour of duty, Sylvester Stallone’s warrior stumbles out of retirement to wreak havoc on the oppressive Burmese military.. Taking place in Southeast Asia, we find John Rambo ( Sylvester Stallone ) living in solitude in Thailand.. He is approached by a group of Christian missionaries to take them into Burma, where the Burmese military has been indulging themselves with a bit of genocide.. After repeatedly telling them in no uncertain terms to ” Go home!” and warning that ” You’re not going to change anything,” he succumbs to the womanly wiles of Sarah Miller ( Julie Benz ) who wraps him around her little finger and gets him to ferry them into the war zone against his better judgment.. He grudgingly takes them upriver and deposits them at a small town.. So it’s no surprise a couple of weeks later, when a panicky Pastor Marks ( Ken Howard ) shows up saying that his parishioners have been taken hostage by the Burmese army and that the U.S. embassy has refused to get involved.. Fueled by a fear that some harm might come to Sarah, Rambo reluctantly signs on to take a group of mercenaries into Burma, Rambo tags along.. But is it his last mission..

Rated: [ R ] Profanity, sexual assaults, grisly images and graphic violence

Cinema release: 25th January 2008

Running time: 95 minutes

Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Paul Schulze, Graham McTavish, Matthew Marsden

“ When you’re pushed, killing’s as easy as breathing..”

Now the storyline is ripped straight from headlines of newspapers.. Armed groups slaughtering thousands of innocent people in waves of mass genocide is something that gets human rights groups blood pumping and gets most people to; change the channel.. Stallone takes one of the greatest crimes of human existence and uses it as the start off point for his film.. While I was expecting this to play only a minor role in the film and was to be glazed over in favor of saving violence for when Stallone gets into Burma, I was surprised at the sheer brutality of what happens to the civilians..

In his role as director, co - writer and leading man, Stallone’s intentions are noble, focusing on the long - running civil war between ruling forces and the Karen People of Burma, who have been tortured and murdered for nearly 60 years..

The opening scene is explosive that few will forget and the attack on the village is griping and shocking at the same time for in a film that takes violence back to the hyper - real, the violence with these scenes are realistically taken and should strike some people in the gut and hopefully take notice of these atrocities.. Blending action with social comment, Rambo puts itself ahead of others, while people change their channels on TV when they see this happen in real life, they are forced to confront it here..

Sylvester Stallone is the epitome of what it means to be an action star.. He’s in countless flicks filed under the ‘ Movies for Guys who like Movies ’ category, and you always have to root for him, as he’s constantly outnumbered or outmatched..

After his successful return to the ring with Rocky Balboa, Stallone decided to continue the story of one of his other iconic characters, the troubled Vietnam War veteran John Rambo..

The franchise started in 1982 with First Blood, which featured Rambo trying to adjust to civilian life.. In a nutshell, he’s given a hard time by a local sheriff and arrested for crimes he didn’t commit.. What results is the ultimate survival film, in which Rambo goes into war mode and escapes to the forests, where he sets up a series of booby traps..

There were of course sequels, in which Rambo was assigned by the government to break into hostile areas and do what he does best - kill the bad guys and rescue the good guys..

In every Rambo film, the violence increased - as did the body counts.. It’s that whole issue of violence in media desensitizing us, so the next time around it has to increase in order to provide the same level of shock.. Well, if that’s still the model we’re working with - Stallone’s latest sequel, the bluntly named Rambo, has taken bloodshed to an all - new level..

Tomorrow’s Entertainment recently spoke with Stallone, which will be posted soon, and the title of the movie came up.. One of the main title’s they were looking at was John Rambo.. He decided not to go with it because fans would think the same as Rocky Balboa, that it was the last chapter in that characters journey.. He said that he felt the journey of John Rambo hasn’t come to an end.. That he felt like there is at least one more chapter.. Of course more information will be provided when it comes to light..

Stallone insisted he would only do another Rambo flick if it was about the human condition.. He stuck to his guns.. Rambo, is about the condition of humans - after they’ve been blown apart by bombs, land mines and projectiles fired from the biggest, loudest firearms you may ever encounter on screen..

A box - office and critical joke for years with a string of absurd movies, Stallone regained a lot of good will with fans on Rocky Balboa, a resurrection of his most - famous character that proved an unlikely commercial success and also earned the respect of many reviewers..

Rocky Balboa got back to the core of the lovable goof known as the Italian Stallion, evoking a lot of the charm of the original ” Rocky ” and rinsing out some of the bad taste left by the increasingly caricatured sequels..

Stallone may be in his sixties, but he hasn’t lost a step in terms of writing, directing or performing in balls - out, action movies.. As with Rocky Balboa, he looks weathered as if he has been through hell and back.. It fits with both of his trademark characters given their experiences and the length of time that has passed since the last film in each franchise.. The cheeky dialogue is cringe - worthy at times, impossible to dissect in others, and somehow effective in the end..

And now he proves it again in Rambo, a revival of the charismatic character he first introduced over a quarter century ago.. John Rambo is a Vietnam War hero from Texas whose post - traumatic stress disorder was compounded by the fact that vets of his era weren’t welcomed back to America with open arms..

Allow me to be completely frank with you in saying that you have never experienced the level of graphic violence contained in this film.. When Rambo and the mercenaries break into action, there are body parts flying everywhere.. Explosions and headshots with high - powered sniper rifles show human bodies being ripped apart in ways that are so absurdly realistic; it leaves you shocked and a little dirty inside..

Of course Rambo wouldn’t be Rambo if people didn’t die - but Rambo 4 makes Saving Private Ryan look like a Hillary Duff pillowfight..

Heads are sliced off, intestines drop out of bodies, and a pig snacks on a man’s leg.. In the final battle you actually see through the holes made in people’s bodies, something I only thought possible in Wile E Coyote cartoons.. Rambo asks the question ” What happens if the deadliest soldier alive came out of retirement to head up river to Burma where government soldiers are sadistically slaughtering innocent Christian towns - folk?” The answer: John Rambo will kill a whole bunch of people.. This isn’t news.. But it does tell us that Rambo turns the clock back to the 80’s: whatever else it does, it doesn’t sell out its legacy.. In fact, it builds on it..

Kills Per Minute:

* Rambo: First Blood ( 1982 ): 0.01

* Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985): 0.72

* Rambo III (1988): 1.30

* Rambo IV (2008): 2.59

The Stallone in Rambo makes the Bruce Willis, in Live Free or Die Hard, and Harrison Ford, in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls, look like Will Farrell, in Kicking & Screaming; and note that he also directed the movie in the blazing wilds of Thailand..

The horror that plagues the Burmese villagers gets a laugh several times because it’s simply not possible; but Burma is nefarious for these acts of animalistic violence, and whatever the critics say, Stallone has done a good deed.. Human life is cheap there.. Stallone memorably has Burmese rebels forced by militants to stumble across wetlands littered with submerged mines.. Wholly original outside of reality, and wholly memorable terror.. Really, when is the last time you thought about the atrocities occurring in Burma? George Clooney can say the word “ Darfur ” with emphasis for the next five years, but Rambo is a more effective message to achieve public awareness.. And it glimmers with startlingly unapologetic entertainment value..

There have been comments about Rambo on sites that express a modest disappointment with, not so much the actors, as the actual presence of the other soldiers of fortune.. Rambo guides these men down the river on a mission to save the American missionaries that have been made prisoners by the Burmese army.. But these characters, especially the roguish Lewis played by the Brit actor Graham McTavish, serve as an uncouth pack of serviceable well - armed lessers and allow for Rambo’s badassery to remain in focus as he stays characteristically solemn, alert and caught in his strange state of perma - regret ( He’s killed what, 1,000 people, a little reflection is due )..

The set - up where the mercs creep into the prisoners’ quarters in the jungle at dark, with rain pouring and splashing off the bamboo huts, lightning striking, mud and shadows kissing, it’s been so long since a movie nailed this kind of cinematic rain - drenched tension that drives people to action - war films.. These scenes are no longer an overdone cliché, even for the character that exhausted them.. Nor are they a low - budget homage here, which is what I was afraid Rambo might be altogether.. The dynamics in these scenes are fresh, and they are shot and edited with confidence and verve.. With an audience presumably familiar and comfortable with the setting, Stallone ducks predictability and lovingly perfects genre imagery that helped make him a star.. This is Stallone’s Unforgiven served at the altar of pop culture, with a wicked slap of the ruler to those who look down on it..

After the missionaries are untied and they escape, with incident, I eased to the notion that the movie was done with its job.. I had witnessed what I came to see, Stallone had made good.. The film was a 3.5 out of 5.. But the next 20 or 30 so - minutes blew my mind.. As Rambo heads deeper into the jungle, the audience is given a literal explosion that is so neatly wrapped up and unforeseeable.. When Rambo executes the explosion here, it is a eye - boggling signal from the most pissed off, toughest person on Earth to whatever sick f#$%er created our galaxy; it is beyond.. There are few scenes that literally knock you into the back of the theater, but like the voice said behind me, the exact same words I muttered, “ Holy Shit, man..”

We see Rambo fairly disgusted with the outside, saying that he has no interest in leaving Thailand as nothing ever changes.. He came home from Vietnam a trained killer and was rejected by America, and so he has returned to the region that has created him, though to be there for far more peaceful purposes.. Also unlike the previous two films where Rambo could squeeze off hundreds of rounds from the same M16 without reloading and comes out a fire fight without an injury, this Rambo actually bleeds and is far more human than what he was before..

There are moments in a man’s life when everything just clicks, the gear is changed and he just goes for broke.. Stallone does that here.. This is not so much indulgent and unnecessary violence, as many would proclaim.. This is a 60 - year -old Stallone clearing the damn theatrical jungle of years of undergrowth, torching mediocre action movies like Hitman, The Transporter, Eraser, Shooter, and Sudden Death forever.. Rambo stands high on a hill, overlooking the carnage, and for a moment I thought he was part Native American, part Jason Voorhees, and part American, the good and the bad and the ugly..

Ostensibly, the ending to this movie is dead quiet, yet it’s packed with crazy, and it’s just as ideal, shockingly awesome, and sort of, just sad.. But the great ending to Rambo, is what the critics are missing and denying in their reviews.. It shows us that we can grow old, and while some of us will die behind desks, some of us are going to rock this world harder than we ever did..

There’s a similar feel to Rambo and First Blood Part II, given the setting.. The boat rides, jungle brawls, and eventual goals of rescuing hostages are repeated from the first sequel.. The pacing is also familiar, leading to a slow build before Rambo’s eventual rampage and audience payoff.. Brian Tyler’s soundtrack is a fine way to mix new and old themes to connect Rambo with its predecessors.. ( Don’t you think so Soundtrackgeek?)

Overall, Rambo is an action film with a timely social comment in it that doesn’t let itself be overburdened with that.. Rambo is action and while some might not appreciate the time spent building up to it, it is a solid action piece that will satisfy fans of the series and makes the perfect bookend to the series.. I give Rambo 4.5 out of 5.. But for Stallone’s effective message to achieve public awareness I am awarding it another .5, giving Rambo 5 out of 5..