(1985/TriStar Pictures) DVD / VHS
Rave Reviews
“Absurdly overwrought comic book action.”
—Halliwell’s Film & Video Guide
“Incredibly dumb.” —Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide
“Stupid slaughter … the Bernie Goetz of Vietnam movies.”
—Jeremiah Kipp, FilmCritic.com
Plot, What Plot? If an eight-year-old boy were given millions of dollars to make a movie starring his G.I. Joe dolls (sorry, “action figures”), the result would probably be eerily similar to Sylvester Stallone’s most successful film, which is also one of the biggest-grossing Worst Picture “winners” in Razzie history: Rambo: First Blood Part II
Completely ignoring the premise of the first First Blood, Part II turns deeply damaged war hero John Rambo from a psychologically scarred veteran into an overly muscled, well-armed killing machine, who almost single-handedly sees to it that in his search for Vietnamera POWs, “we get to win this time.” Putting the simplemindedness of the film’s premise aside, Rambo II has little or no dramatic tension, since, from the minute it begins, we instinctively know Rambo will survive, no matter how many enemy guns, tanks, grenades, and other armaments are aimed at his big, fat, red-bandanna-wrapped head. The “fun” is supposed to be in seeing how many “Cong” and other Commies Rambo can kill, and how many fireballs he can make by “blowing stuff up real good.” The body count for this film has been estimated at over seventy-five onscreen deaths, the highest of the three Rambo movies and a number that, considering the film is barely 95 minutes long, averages almost one victim per minute.
While the idea of using America’s anguish over its Vietnam POWs as a device to sell movie tickets is inherently offensive, the filmmakers’ execution of their premise—and especially Stallone’s steroid-driven star turn in the title role—is often laugh-out-loud funny. Grimacing, grunting, and flexing his chest muscles like Steve Reeves playing Hercules, Sly never slows for a minute in pursuing his self-righteous slaughter of what he considers “the bad guys.” When it finally dawns on him near the film’s end that the American government itself is among the bad guys, his answer is to unload an entire ammo belt from his machine gun into the Army’s computers while unleashing a guttural, 30-second-long grunt at the top of his lungs. Aside from the sexually impotent implications of the image, the look on Stallone’s face in this scene sums up what Rambo is really about: blind rage more appropriate to a sleep-deprived toddler than a decorated war hero. He then follows this up with a flag-waving, jingoistic final speech (see Dippy Dialogue below) that is both shameless in its pandering and hilarious in its melodramatic overintensity But wait, the lunacy isn’t over yet: Under the end titles, Sly’s little brother, Frank, provides a song so out of whack with the rest of the film that your jaw may drop to the floor. It’s entitled “Peace in Our Life,” and it deservedly “won” our Worst “Original” Song Razzie.
The idea that millions of Americans embraced this film (while failing to question its worldview) is in many ways disturbing. But if you can get past that, Stallone gives one of his most audaciously, amusingly over-the-top performances. And that’s without even addressing the homoerotic implications of the material…
Dippy Dialogue
Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna): “What do you want… ?”John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), after a deep breath and a dramatic pause: “I want… what they want… and every other guy who came over here and spilt his guts and gave everything he had wants … For our country to love us as much as we love it. That’s what I want!” (After pausing again for audience applause, Rambo walks off.)
Choice Chapter Stop
Chapter 34 (“Destruction”): In which hambo Rambo lets loose a load of Freudian “bullets” into the Army’s computers.
Fun Footnote
When Rambo II and Rocky IV between them took sixteen nominations, then “won” eight dis-honors, the headline on our “winners” press release read “Sly and the Family Stallone Dominate 6th Annual Razzie Awards.”
(John Rambo); Richard Crenna (Col. Trautman); Charles Napier (Marshall Murdock); Steven Berkoff (Lt. Col. Podovsky); Julia Nickson
(Co Bao); Don Collins (POW #1)