Review of Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) by The R — 04 Dec 2010

John Rambo is back, with bigger muscles, a bigger mullet and a much bigger body count. In "Rambo: First Blood Part II", Rambo is dropped into Vietnam to look for POWs, and just can't help but blow away Vietnamese soldiers at the first opportunity and refight and win the Vietnam War.

This film is pure Reagan-era conservative fantasy any way you cut it - there's even some Russian baddies and a patriotic speech thrown in for good measure - and this now doubt played a role in its box office success.

It's also a well made action film, despite some problems. I'll start with the positives. Sylvester Stallone is effective as the titular killing machine, sincere and with great physical presence.

Charles Napier is pretty good as the slimy (not to mention sweaty and greasy) bureaucrat who sets up Rambo's mission, Richard Crenna is much less stiff as Col. Trautman than he was in the first film (he seems to have shed his Shatner-esque delivery of dialogue), and Steven Berkoff has some fun as the sadistic Col.

Podovsky. The action sequences in the film are well shot and quite thrilling, at times making good use of the jungle locations. The film isn't remotely stylish, but there are some nice visual touches common in '80s action films that I liked - the fetishistic attention to the equipment as Rambo gears up, shooting Stallone to make him appear superhuman.

The film is a fairly typical '80s actioner (this is one of the films that created the mold for the genre), and is much more cartoonish than the first film, but I don't necessarily fault it for that.

One of the problems I do have with the film is the pacing. For the first half of the film, the film tries to develop some dramatic tension, but this doesn't really work in a film this cartoonish, and it isn't until the second half that the film delivers on the action.

Also, while the film is cartoonish, I couldn't help but feel that it would have benefited from another layer of exaggeration. While the villains are slimy, they could have stood to be slimier and could have benefited from a bit more characterization, and while there is a good amount of action, there could have been more to cover the dead spots in the first half of the film.

The film lacks a sense of humour, which I think makes it inferior in comparison to some of Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies from the same era. Thankfully Stallone's righteous streak (which pops up in his movies from time to time) doesn't overwhelm the sense of fun.

All in all, "Rambo: First Blood Part II" is an unexceptional (save it's title character) but fairly entertaining action picture.