Rambo Marathon: Rebuttal: Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

In this edition of the Rambo Marathon I don’t know what to write about, I honesty don’t, so be prepared to either be scared at my insanity or bored by my inanity!

To make sure you know what I am responding to, go read Edgar’s review of Rambo: First Blood Part II at Between The Seats.

This is the first time in the eight movies we have reviewed jointly, to this point, that I haven’t needed to even look at your review before writing my rebuttal. You hated Rambo: First Blood Part II, I hated Rambo: First Blood Part II, there’s nothing to rebut there. The comment you left in my review for the movie is apropos, all a true rebuttal would consist of is one of us saying some aspect of the film was bad and the other countering that it was actually terrible. Well, that’s pretty darn pointless in my mind, so you hate the movie, I hate the movie, let’s leave it at that and move on.

But, where does that leave me in regards to this rebuttal? I can’t just write the above paragraph, that wouldn’t be fair to your or to my readers, I don’t think. Instead, I’d like to wax poetic on Sylvester Stallone as an actor. Sure, this isn’t that interesting of a topic, but I’d like to possibly get your take on him as an actor. I feel he is criminally underrated, but at the same time I can see why he is underrated since he is responsible for most of the critical damage done to his career. Even in Rambo: First Blood Part II you can see moments of the actor Stallone can be, but you see more and more of the image intensive approach that would define the majority of Sly’s acting career.

I look at Stallone in roles like Rocky, Cop Land, First Blood, and Rocky Balboa and I see a guy with a lot of range and an actor who understands how to emotionally connect with his audience. Sadly, around around the time of Rambo: First Blood Part II he started moving more towards simply being a muscle bound guy, someone who cracked a few jokes, or was deathly serious depending on the role, and looked the look of the Adonis type figure. He lost the little touches in his acting, and while he would find his way back from time to time there’s no doubt that the image of Stallone veered far away from that of a serious actor. (I say all of this having enjoyed his less than serious work in such films as Cliffhanger and Demolition Man, but there is no denying that he shoved his acting talent to the side in favor of physical image.)

Not much of a rebuttal, I know, but there wasn’t anything for me to rebut. I wasn’t feeling particularly creative today either, and I was wondering where you would fall on Sly Stallone as an actor, thus you get this as a rebuttal. Here’s hoping things pick up with Rambo III and we at the very least are given a movie that tries for something, so we can debate its failings and successes. I, however, do obviously win this round by default, you know that’s the way it is.

You can go and read Edgar’s rebuttal of my review for Rambo: First Blood Part II at his website, Between The Seats.

**Just so you are aware, my annual Horror Month is coming up, I like to call it Splatter Time Fun Fest, and that means no more Rambo until November. The marathon will pick right back up with Rambo III come November, but I just wanted to make you aware that it will be on hiatus for the month of October.**

Cheers,
Bill