Monday, July 06, 2009

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)


If there’s a fundamental difference between First Blood and the sequel made three years later, Rambo: First Blood Part II, it’s that Rambo’s psychological scars seemed to have finally healed. He is no longer the tormented vet wandering the woods of America in search of vestiges of some unknown he could vaguely call “home.” Instead, as the film opens, we find him in prison, breaking rocks under the hot sun. “In here, at least I know where I stand,” he tells Col. Trautman, who has come to arrange his release in order to send him on a mission to locate missing POWs still believed to be in Vietnam. As Rambo stares through the chain-link fence at his former commander, his gaze is cool yet heated. Distrust and disappointment, that unrequited rage, still boils beneath the surface, yet he knows that he has lost the two wars that meant the most to him: the one in Vietnam where he was reborn as a soldier, and the war back at home to make his nation understand what he and his fellow soldiers went through. It’s not that he’s defeated, but that he’s given up the good fight. Rambo knows now that the world won’t listen, won’t change.

Read my full review of Rambo: First Blood Part II here at Not Coming to a Theater Near You.

7 comments:

Inside our hands, outside our hearts said...

This has nothing, I am sure, to do with your review or what you might think of Rambo's healed or covered emotional status. But, the last line caught my eye. "...the world won't listen, won't change" and so I must toss my two-cents worth in. The world is a strange place, as I am sure you know, and yet, we as a people think we can change the minds of others. Now don't get me wrong I would love to be as naive as Rambo and think that we can correct the wrong doings and such, but the world seems to want to stay ugly. I mean look at the state of things and when some God awful person kills someone or even better, more than one person we are so tuned in to the television that we can't remember what we were doing that was so important before this new event; case and point, the Death of Michael Jackson. Everyone seems to worship him, but are even more drawn in since there could be foul play. Oh, and let's not forget the drugs involved.

I bet you are wondering what the hell I am talking about or at the very least why I am talking at all. (smirk) I guess I was, in a horrid way mind you, trying to show you that the reason movies like Rambo and their sequels work is because we, the world, somewhere in our minds, need to see something that makes our personal lives look better. Sadly, it doesn't always work. But for a moment for many it is an escape from the knowing.

Sorry if I rambled on lol.

T

Anonymous said...

One of the best movies I've ever seen, specially the first Rambo: first blood. I think Sylvester Stallone is in the process of making another Rambo movie.

college board said...

Very interesting material. Well when there is so much a new. Many thanks, simply class

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I remember that as Rambo leaves, Trautman asks him, "How will you live, John?" To which Rambo replies, "Day by day."

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^^ yeah!!!! remember it too!!! most umpressive his saying ever!! cool!

Anonymous said...

plz all mighty rambo/stallone make rambo V on before first blood PLZZZZZZZZZZZZ I BEG KF YOU!!!!!! I WILL BUY THE SH!T OUTA TGAT

Anonymous said...

goddamnit the damn typos are real