It's been eleven years since we got a Rambo film. I don't think anybody truly expected we would get another, but then Stallone threw that photo of him in the Sherriff cowboy hat on Instagram a few months ago and now we have the fifth and presumably final film in the series. Rambo 2008 was a glorious sight to behold in the old ultra-violence; how does Last Blood compare?
John Rambo has retired to a farm on the border of Mexico (I presume) with his housekeeper or something, and her daughter Gabrielle. He must be neighbours with Enrique from Terminator 2; in fact they must be good buddies and share tunnel-making tips. Both seem to like storing an armoury underground, anyway. Rambo ups the game though with his own freaking iron smelter. And the machetes and crossbows on the wall. And then he invites kids around for a cave rave! Crazy ol' Uncle John. I digress..
John loves Gabrielle as if she were his own daughter, but she wants to go to Mexico to find her real father. John tells her it's a bad idea but in the cover of darkness she goes anyway. One thing leads to another and she's sold to a sex trafficking ring run by the Martinez brothers. Rambo tries to rescue her and is beaten to within an inch of his life and saved by a reporter and nursed back to health. I don't even need to recap the rest of it to you, but needless to say once recuperated he sets out to get bloody, brutal revenge. Rambo on a rampage is a man you don't want to get in the way of.
This was a solid DTV action movie that happened to play at the cinema. It has that Nu Image/Millennium flavour that the previous Rambo had - as do the The Expendables and Olympus Has Fallen franchises - which is why I get that regular cinema goers haven't been enamoured by most of those films, including Rambo: Last Blood. The dialogue can be wooden. The plots far from original. Clichés and stereotypes abound. People cry 'racism' at time-honoured-80s tropes of Cartel bad guys (or Russians, or terrorists from Madeupistan, etc.). These films speak to the honest action fan who just wants explosions and violence delivered in a way they are used to. The Guardian said the film was cheap and nasty carnage. Your point being?! I knew what I was signing up for.
As you can tell from above, this is Action Movie Standard Plot #12 with all the usual trimmings. That's no bad thing, but if you expect Rambo in the jungle, or god forbid, a REAL movie like First Blood, you will be understandably disappointed. Last Blood will appeal far more to fans of previous Nu Image outings than it will fans of First Blood unless you really have a hankering for the character and the weapons building montage (which of course, you get in this film too). This has more in common with Dolph Lundgren's Skin Trade than Rambo 2008.
Depending what cut of the film you watch (there's apparently a US cut and International cut) you will either see the opening ten minutes pre-plot or not. John Rambo volunteers to help in emergencies, a bit like the Australian State Emergency Service I guess, except on a horse. He rescues a hiker in torrential rain but can't save two others, and for that he beats himself up over it comparing it to how he couldn't save his buddies in Vietnam. The tortured past of the Vietnam Vet is a recurring theme in Rambo films, and it is no different in Last Blood. He has flashbacks and hears voices. It's probably why he's built this underground tunnel system on his farm.
There's a good build up with Rambo’s tunnels. I mean, why would you build this if not for use in the third act of a movie? Yeah. It sets itself up for its purpose, and that's more than fine given the treatment we got in the final fifteen minutes. God DAMN that was a savage blast of violence. This is why you are here folks, for the comeuppance. All the trap setting you expect from John Rambo is amplified when it's in his own backyard. It's like Kevin from Home Alone, but rated R and playing for keeps. This is seriously some of the most brutal action violence I've seen in a mainstream picture. Very creative deaths are dished out to cartel members and you will be cheering the screen as each are taken down. Literal ribs are broken and stick out of chests. It's glorious, and that's only the beginning.
So is it better than Rambo 2008? No, it is not. It's not even really a Rambo film, if you expect jungles and soldiers. But it is a solid revenge action film with Sylvester Stallone and the final bloodbath is worth the price of entry. A solid B+ from me.
Highlight:
You know that old line of “I’ll rip your heart out and show it to you before you die”? Yeah.
To say that I've been looking forward to seeing The Expendables 2 is like saying "I quite enjoy breathing". I needed to see this movie, as my wife will attest to, and it simply did not disappoint. If you are a fan of big, dumb 80's style action films, a fan of the first movie, or somebody who thought the first movie needed to go further, then all you need to know is "go see this film immediately".
The film opens in Nepal as mercenaries are bludgeoning a captive prisoner. Enter: The Expendables - Toll Road (Randy Couture), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) to save the day with tanks, missiles, and endless rounds of ammunition unleashed upon enemy forces resulting in CG-gore head-shots (which look pretty good to my eyes, and not obviously cartoon-y - just over the top!), and newcomer Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) sniping from a distance with his 50 calibre rifle. Jet Li even pulls out the martial arts with saucepans like a late 70's Hong Kong film. It's hard to put in words how awesome this opening scene is.
Rescuing their target (and somebody else who was in the wrong place at the wrong time) the team fly home for some R&R. That's when Church (Bruce Willis) shows up demanding that a debt to him be paid by Barney Ross, so the team set out to retrieve a package from a safe in a downed plane. Sounds like an easy pay check but Ross has to agree to take specialist Maggie (Nan Yu) along with him. Of course it all goes terribly wrong when somebody else is after the package - Villain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a ruthless arms dealer - and one of the Expendables crew is killed in action by a knife to the throat held by Villain's right-hand-man, Hector (the awesome Scott Adkins). So what does a team of old mercenaries do? "Track 'em, find 'em, kill 'em!" … with a few old friends showing up along the way to give a helping hand.
This was a great, great action movie. If movies are based solely on the amount of fun you have watching them, then The Expendables 2 is up there with the best. Don't be stupid and look for deep meaning, just giggle like a schoolgirl when Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis empty an entire airport with automatic weapons! Laugh as Lundgren gets drunk and tries to crack on to Nan Yu's Maggie. Fist-pump the air as Terry Crews brings out the automatic shotgun from the first film and dismembers wave after wave of bad guy. Grin from ear to ear as Jason Statham dressed as a priest declares "I now pronounce you man and knife!". Cheer as Chuck Norris appears out of the smoke and forgets how to act entirely (Arnie is a bit rusty too, but who the hell cares?). Even Nan Yu (also in Dolph Lundgren's "Diamond Dogs") gets her fair share of carnage in.
"I'll be back!", "You've been back enough! It's time for me to be back!"
If you thought the first film had a lot of back-slapping referential humour, you ain't seen nothing yet! Any time Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone share a scene it's just a constant stream of "Rambo", "I'll be back" and "Yippie-ki-yay" lines. You'll cringe but you'll love it at the same time. They are clearly having a whale of a time doing it and you'll have a whale of a time watching it. And you may have read it elsewhere but Chuck Norris does crack a Chuck Norris Fact joke - and it's brilliantly awful.
Van Damme is excellent as the plutonium-obsessed leader Villain who forces slaves to dig mines looking for the lost Russian chemicals of destruction. His twisted portrayal of the character gives you someone to hate and also makes you wonder why JCVD doesn't do bad-guy roles more often - he previously only seemed to do them when he appears in the movie as two characters ala Replicant. Scott Adkins' Hector is just as great as his right-hand-man, and is ruthless in carrying out orders given to him by Villain. And yes, we get to see both dudes roundhouse kicking members of Ross' team - Van Damme's still got it!
Downsides? Well Yin Yang is only in the opening scene before making a discreet exit out of the plane with a parachute over China, to which a disappointed Gunner asks "Who am I going to make fun of now?" and Yin replies "Find another minority". Toll Road, Hale Caesar and Gunner are pushed more to the background than the first movie with no real shining moments given to any of them - though Gunner does try to save the day in one instance with his degree in Chemical Engineering; a degree that Dolph Lundgren actually has! The end fights involving Adkins and JCVD could have been longer but that is really splitting hairs - they were great as they were. Any other downsides revolve around similar issues people had with the first movie; that is some of the emotional plot lines were a bit forced and didn't quite work. That issue is still apparent here when Sly talks with Hemsworth or Nan Yu but not as bad as the attempts with Mickey Rourke were in the first film.
The Expendables 2 is the cure to all the Mission Impossible 17's and Bourne Whatever's of the world. No brains, all brawn, big guns and fun dialogue. Directed this time by Simon West who has helmed Con Air and Tomb Raider, he films a frenetic action film that only resorts to shaky-cam once by my count and looks a treat, outside a few overly-dark moments including the final Stallone/JCVD fight. Another classic in Nu Image's action repository. See this now!
Highlight:
There are many, many glorious moments in this film but I have to give it up for the few appearances we get of Chuck Norris. Every time he appears on screen he gets his own theme song. He cracks a Chuck Norris joke, badly, and it's brilliant. And he gets one of the funniest kills in the movie where the resultant headshot is viewed through the full body security scanner at the airport. Boom!
THE EXPENDABLES is a hard-hitting action/thriller about a group of mercenaries hired to infiltrate a South American country and overthrow its ruthless dictator. Once the mission begins, the men realize things aren't quite as they appear, finding themselves caught in a dangerous web of deceit and betrayal. With their mission thwarted and an innocent life in danger the men struggle with an even tougher challenge, one that threatens to destroy this band of brothers.
Movie Review:
To say I have been looking forward to this is a massive understatement. I've been telling anyone who will listen about this movie. "The cast!" I would say. "Stallone! Statham! Jet Li! Arnie! Willis! DOLPH!... DOLPH!!!" I insisted upon people, until they looked at me funny. So today being the first Saturday since the films release, my wife and I went on an Explosive Action date night. Spoilers ahoy.
The movie starts just as the original teasers showed us. Stallone, Statham, Jet Li and the rest infiltrate the filming of a hostage video. A gang of pirates have kidnapped some American citizens and demand three million dollars ransom money for their return. We all know the United States standard issue reply of "we don't negotiate with terrorists", and that seems to be case here. Thirty days have gone by and no-one has stepped forward to pay the ransom. The lead guerrilla declares the blood about to be spilt is on their hands when suddenly half a dozen red laser sights are trained on him. Stallone et. al. are waiting on the rooftop and throws down a bag of money for the release of the hostages. The greedy pirate now says he wants five million. Dolph appears and says he'll fire a warning shot at one of the men. I spit popcorn on the chair in front of me when the guy explodes in a melee of gore and Dolph responds with "Woops, too low." Gunplay ensues, and we're off to a great start.
I grinned when I saw the Millennium Pictures logo and "a Nu Image Picture", but I cheered when I saw Dolph Lundgren's name mentioned fourth in the opening credits. I've become a real geek for his movies this year. The cast list is an action movie fan's wet dream, especially the scene where Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stallone all meet. This was purely for the 80's fans, nothing more - probably why Willis and Arnie go uncredited in the movie. After completing their previous mission, Stallone and eventually the others retire to Mickey Rourke's tattoo parlour to shoot the breeze and get inked. Rourke appears to be the guys manager of sorts and receives a call saying that there is a new job going if they want it. Stallone as the leader heads off to a church to meet Willis, the guy who wants the job done, though Willis has also invited another party to the table to see who wants the job more. Enter Schwarzenegger in a grand display through the church doors. The three have some funny banter together that is really just Bruce, Sly and Arnie talking and not their characters e.g. Stallone takes digs at Arnie, suggesting that he wants to be president and Arnie suggests that Stallone feels more at home in the jungle. It's a needless scene but fantastic all the same and one for the fanboys (me).
The job is to go to a mythical South American country and remove the evil dictator, General Garza (David Zayas, Sergeant Angel Batista from Dexter). Stallone and Statham go ahead in their private plane to scout it and meet their contact, but not all is as it seems. Their contact for starters is a woman, Sandra (Giselle Itié, a virtual unknown). She also reveals in a car ride that Americans have come and screwed the country up by running drugs and killing the locals. Eric Roberts is fantastic as the evil guy of the piece, and the one pulling the General's strings. His line delivery is humorous and he's really a guy you like to hate. Less can be said for Steve Austin who plays Roberts henchman, along with Gary Daniels hamming it up good and proper as The Brit. Austin doesn't say a great deal, he merely carries out orders but he does get a good final fight. Daniels says even less but he gets to show off a little bit of kickboxing in his own fight scenes, and he gets a pretty hilarious death (he is a henchman after all, so you can't call that a spoiler, you knew it was coming!).
Stallone, Statham and Sandra get into a car chase that's pretty good and then flee to their waiting jet. Statham tries to get Sandra to come along but she says her place is in her country. The two guys may leave the country the way they arrived, but they sure as hell leave as much mess as possible. Chased to the air strip by the military they finally take off and start heading home. Stallone changes his mind though, turns around and with Statham on weapons lay waste to the army down below with gun fire, dumping fuel on them and shooting it on fire. Ka-BOOM.
Stallone and Statham work well together which is good as for much of the movie it's just those two guys. Statham has the edge with his knives but Stallone really brings it with his quick-fire handguns. The second half brings Jet Li back into the action more and the banter with him is really funny; he alters his life story whenever asked and jokes about how being four foot tall makes it hard for him to fight the bigger guys. Dolph is my standout Expendable. His role as the whack-job Gunner is exceptional and a little reminiscent of Universal Soldier's Andrew Scott. He totally steals the scene when he's in it. Time will tell if this role helps him get more of his movies released theatrically. Only Couture let's the acting quality down. Speaking is not his strong point, though his rant about his cauliflower ear is quite amusing. Rourke has a bit of an emotional moment sobbing to Stallone how he has no soul because he let a stranger commit suicide in front of him and did not prevent it. Stallone is determined to keep his soul so goes back to rescue the girl.
When The Exependables really get going, they get bloody. The kills are consistently great and I think they can be best described by the IMDB Guide for Parents on The Expendables:
A man is shot in half with a shotgun. His innards fly out and blood splats on the camera. More people are shot in the same scene and blood and organic matter are shown flying out of the wounds.
A man stabs plenty of people in a room, then proceeds to stab another and slowly drive the knife into his chest (blood is shown spraying out uncontrollably and splattering the stabbers' face).
A man has his head kicked backwards so his neck breaks in a gruesome fashion.
There's grenades flying, machine guns firing, hand-to-hand combat and martial arts, you name a weapon it it's here. The winner for me goes to Terry Crews absolutely fantastic shotgun. In a scene reminiscent of Aliens, Crews explains why his shotgun is so awesome and from that point on I was eager to see it in action. The bullets he explains are tipped with a small missile and anyone they hit just turns to liquid. When he finally pulls the thing out it's a beautiful moment - it absolutely rips to shreds everyone in its path, not so much leaving gaping holes in them but just removing them from the gene pool altogether. My wife was cackling in glee so hard I was a little scared of her. Awesome.
The third act is total Explosive Action and recalls all the best 80's movies like Commando and Cobra. I lost count at the amount of people turned to corpses at the hands of The Expendables but it was huge, almost as huge as the insane amount of fireball explosions. It's a real treat to see something like this on the big screen again.
I have a feeling though that we may have lost 20 minutes or so of this movie due to the Hollywood industry thinking that cinema-goers can't tolerate more than 100 minutes in a chair unless it's the Lord of the Rings. The character buildup was pretty minimal; we don't even find out half the guys names. At one point Terry Crews calls Jet Li "Ying Yang". I thought he was making a racist joke but no, that's his credited name in the movie. Crews himself is awesomely called Hale Caeser, which explains why Caeser is engraved on his razor blade. I have a feeling that the eventual DVD and Blu-ray releases will be a directors cut extended edition and I look forward to seeing that.
This is a sensational movie and exactly the movie I wanted to see - a movie for the 80's action fans, both those that thought Dolph stopped making movies after Universal Soldier and those that stuck with him on direct-to-DVD releases. Some of the second reel's story gets melodramatic but that's how the 80's action movies went a lot of the time. Explosions, emotions, more explosions, in that order. You need a girl in distress so that she can be rescued, and that always comes with a sobbing backstory. You need some backstory to the characters so you know why they are doing the things they are doing. You accept it and move on, knowing that the third act will simply blow your socks off. And boy did it ever.
The Video:
I had to see this in the cinema, I couldn't call myself an Explosive Action fan if I didn't. I'm glad to report that this movie looks and sounds just like it should - an 80's action movie filmed with 2010 equipment. No stupid Bourne effects, no Avid farts (as Vern likes to refer to them), just pure action (though there is a little bit of shaky cam). The sound of Terry Crews massive shotgun almost deafened me. You definitely have to see this at the cinema.
On a side note, I was hugely disappointed at the lack of promotion for the movie at my local 8 screen cinema. One solitary poster, nestled in-between massive cardboard standing displays for Angelina Jolie's upcoming SALT and some kids movie rubbish. Are Australian cinemas embarrassed to be releasing this movie, or is it simply the result of it being published by a predominantly DTV production company? I've seen some great promotion going on overseas and I think Miillennium/Nu Image opened their wallets wide for this one so I'm not sure what's going on. Perhaps the city cinemas are promoting it more. US box office predictions look good with over thirty million in the opening weekend.
Sourced From:
Event Cinemas, $16.50 per ticket ($35 total). Expensive but worth every cent.
Trailer:
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More Screens:
I obviously have no DVD to take screenshots from so here are some of the international movie posters for the movie. All credit goes to Jox at the Dolph forum for sourcing these.
Like Sylvester Stallone's Rocky and Rambo, the hero of Cobra is another original: Lt. Marion Cobretti, a one man assault force whose laser-mount submachine gun and pearl-handled Colt .45 spit pure crimestopping venom.
Rambo: First Blood Part II director George P. Cosmatos rejoins Stallone for this thriller pitting Cobretti against a merciless serial killer. The trail leads to not one murderer but to an army of psychos bent on slashing their way to a "New Order" - and killing the inadvertent witness (Brigitte Nielsen) to their latest blood spree. Fortunately, Cobra is her protector. And full-throttle screen excitement doesn't get any better.
Movie Review:
If the IMDB listing is to be believed, then somehow I have managed to never see a Canon movie. I own a few on DVD - Missing in Action, Masters of the Universe - and I am aware of others, like the American Ninja and Death Wish series, but these movies are all in the 'to be watched' pile. One of the oldest in that pile was Sylvester Stallone's Cobra, so why not kill two birds with one Stallone (haaa.....) and review an underrated Sly movie and my first Canon movie?
The film opens with the distinctive, gravely slurred voice of Sylvester Stallone over the credits telling us about how violent America has become - a violent crime every 24 seconds, a murder every 20 minutes - followed by shots of some gang members clanging axes together. Flick forward to a supermarket scene where a deranged looking hobo with a bad moustache begins unleashing shotgun fury upon other customers and defenceless goods. The cops arrive and try to talk the madman out of there but they are unsuccessful (the crazy loon sets a guy free then shoots him in the back anyway).
That's when they call in The Cobra. Stallone arrives, total badass chewing on a match stick, on motorbike with the most awesome pair of aviators you've ever seen. They are like giant mirrors and reflect the scenery perfectly. The detectives fill him in on the situation and Sly sneaks in to the supermarket, stopping to drink an unrefrigerated beer then blows the guy away after a short interchange of words: "I'll blow this place up!", "I don't shop here." Boom!
The Cobra is a great action hero and could have spawned a series of movies. Cobra: Executive Decision? Cobra: Final Impact? Cobra: Explosion Imminent? Sounds great to me. The Cobra is an asshole too. When a pack of Mexican hooligans park in "his" car spot, he simply nudges their car out of the way with his own. The Cobra cleans his guns whilst watching children's cartoons on television. During the ad break he sees a news report about a serial killer called The Night Slasher (played by Brian Thompson who I recognised as the alien bounty hunter from The X-Files, but has been in various 80's and 90's action movies like Cynthia Rothrock's "Rage and Honour", JCVD's "Wrong Bet" aka "Lionheart" and his own starring vehicle Hired to Kill, something I intend to get a hold of and review as soon as I can).
Anyway, The Night Slasher has killed his sixteenth victim and looks to keep the bodies piling up. He and his masked associates attack helpless women in their cars (they're REAL MEN). Cobra wants in on the case but his captain thinks he's too much of a loose canon and denies him. As more women are killed, however, the decision is reversed and Cobra gets to go after The Night Slasher and his gang. I should mention Cobra's partner, the sugar-addicted Sergeant Gonzales (Reni Santoni) who, with his flat driving hat, looks like he should be driving a New York taxi. He obviously plays second banana to Lieutenant Marion 'Cobra' Cobretti and they playfully insult each other. They ask questions around town (to the tune of a horrible song called Angel of the City; woeful 80's pop of the worst kind) in all the sleazy places but get nowhere.
The Night Slasher and his gang tries for their next victim, Ingrid (Brigitte Nielsen, Red Sonja!), a stripper. After leaving her work she gets attacked in the car park but gets away in her car. She did however get to see the Night Slasher's face and goes to the cops to give her statement to the Cobra. Cobra and his partner try to keep Ingrid safe but the Night Slasher knows that she has seen his face (there's a leak somewhere in the force) and tries to kill her by sneaking into her hospital posing as a cleaner wearing goofy glasses. Genius.
The movie plays out how you think it does - protect the girl, kill the bad guys - and has all the action you could possibly want and justify for a movie like this (lots). There's a pretty sweet car chase of three cars that fly over hills repeatedly (Sly's car ends up in pretty rough shape), crashing through news stands etc. He does a handbrake one-eighty and shoots at oncoming traffic with a machine gun (awesome) and - get this - his car has a Nitrous button! One hit and Sly and Ingrid rocket down the highway, avoiding exploding tanker trucks. Cobra gets chewed out by his captain again, there's a tacky love scene at a motel between Cobra and Ingrid, and it culminates in an all-out war with bikies, grenades and the token finale at a refinery with lots of stealthy stabbings. Gold.
I loved this movie. Why does it never get spoken about? If like me you somehow managed to miss seeing Cobra, make sure you pick up a copy soon and revel in it's awesomeness. It's great 80's B-grade with a Hollywood star action like Raw Deal and Action Jackson.
The Video:
I have the R4 DVD but I almost managed to obtain a nice 720p HD version of the film that was broadcast on TV. Whilst grainy it was the grain I expect and want from a 1980's action movie. I would be happy to see this master used on an eventual Blu-ray, it was more than acceptable for the source material, and a definite upgrade to my DVD (I did a quick comparison). Runtime 87 minutes.
Sourced From:
The DVD I got so long ago I don't remember. The HD rip I got out there in Internet land, search Cobra HDTV and you'll find it (note: I do not condone piracy; make sure you own the DVD first and we can simply consider this 'media shifting').
