I can remember going ape over this film when I was a stupid little teenager back in 1985. My friends and I, inspired by films of this nature and a new game on the open market entitled Skirmish, decided to create our own Vietnam environment and hunt each other down. Lucky for us they didn’t send 15 years olds to prison back then. So many war criminals where I come from…
Anyhow, all that nonsense aside, here’s John Rambo, rippling from his success in the first film of this series, First Blood. Sylvester Stallone plays the mumbling war hero again as he is sent into Vietnam to find information regarding the whereabouts of hundreds of US soldiers of that war still listed as ‘missing’. Naturally he can’t do it without his trusty blade and his inherent psychological scarring from torture at the hands of the Vietnamese. Which, of course, leads to bloodshed as Rambo carves full tilt through a couple of battalions of Vietnamese soldiers using anything from his hands to explosive tipped arrows as weapons.
| "What you choose to call Hell… he calls home." |
And that’s basically all there is to it. There’s a minor conspiracy of government betrayal but this is pretty thin, although it leads to the epic conclusion of this second part of the Rambo trilogy (and most likely written without the idea there may be a third to come). Rambo also finds love in a very tacked-on romance between himself and a grenade launcher - sorry, just seeing if you’re awake - a pretty Vietnamese agent who acts as his guide in the friendly Vietnamese jungle.
In essence there’s nothing here but a mindless string of ways to kill a man, though the trademarks of Rambo’s art that we got a taste of in our first sojourn into that most complex of souls, First Blood, again make an appearance. Rambo hides behind shrubs, covers himself in mud and also jumps up out of the water to shoot arrows at people. Plus he dives out of the way of exploding napalm all the time as well.
If you’re a fan of the series, this one is the better of the two sequels, but not much on the first. Having a bigger budget and better screenwriters does not necessarily add any depth, although there’s the American treatment of Vietnamese vets spear again driven into the audience a la the first film. Just with more oomph.
And, whilst on the subject of screenwriters, this screenplay was penned by none other than Sly himself and a young whippersnapper in the film industry at the time, one James Cameron. Who was, of course, soon to be seen writing and directing a sequel to 1979's Alien and then one many years later about some big-arse ship what sank in the sea. I think in that it got attacked by aliens with napalm or something.
Again, the treatment for this nigh-on 20-year old film has been masterfully approached. A full size 2.35:1 cinema aspect ratio with anamorphic camouflage makes the film look much better than it used to on the grainy video copy I had when I was younger, that’s for sure. Colours are all fine, lines are crisp and while not razor sharp are still pretty clean. There are but occasional film artefacts present and only very rare instances of compression issues early on. A pretty good looking picture here that duplicates the quality of the first on DVD, though there is a bizarre jangle in the credits at 1:31:47 that resembles a film jitter of sorts.
Another rolling Dolby Digital 5.1 surround setup here that sees the neighbours packing up and moving or calling the police. There's so much noise with the not-so-sporadic gunfire and explosions ripping the shit out of the subwoofer, you’ll be in war heaven (which is where all the fallen end up, I’m led to believe). The sound effects are, naturally, suitable, though the arrows (that Rambo himself states are so silent) make a cracking gunfire sound as they leave the bow. What’s up with that?
Music has again been scored by all round good guy Jerry Goldsmith and here it resembles strongly the first film’s score, though it has a more distinct Asian bunch of variations on it. Sadly there’s another really lame song over the closing titles entitled Peace in Our Life with lyrics penned and sung by one Frank Stallone. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence? Jerry Goldsmith again scores the song, just as he did in the first film with the lame-o song in the ending.
Well, this isn’t quite as good as the first offering in First Blood, but it is a watchable film filled with hardcore death and destruction. I lost count when totaling the body count, but I’m pretty sure there’ll be more than enough death and waste here to satisfy anyone who enjoys this sort of overblown God Bless America filmmaking. They struggled briefly with various films and franchises in trying to win their only lost war through film, but eventually even the Yanks saw the futility of this and stopped doing it. Thankfully.
As part of the box set it has its place right where it belongs; second to the first and ahead of the worst.
