I'm a fan of the good ole days. I was talking with my friend Evan Williams about some of the old films that just rocked our world. Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, Commando, Rambo First Blood, Rambo : First Blood Part 2, Rambo III, Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, ROCKY IV!!!, Robocop, Robocop II, Predator, Terminator, Terminator 2 : Judgment Day and Die Hard. The action movies of the 80s were everything that a young boy could want. Everything you pretended with your friends in the front yard, grown men were doing in Thailand and South / Central America or the streets of Detroit and New York. If you notice a theme, two guys dominated the conversation. Stallone. Schwarzenegger. They were the kings. Everyone else just sat and watched. One of them decided to be a governor. The other has decided to revisit old glory. While reminiscing, Evan and I decided to hit the local Blockbuster and rent the newest Rambo (since it wasn't on the queue and I had watched First Blood I and II earlier while sick). Here is what we found :


Stallone is back at it and 60 years old. Not quite the action hero of the past but now with new technology!!! Not only that, but Stallone wants to use Rambo to bring light to social injustice around the world. Like Burma, Bulgaria (due out in 2009 making it Rambo V) and sex trade in Mexico (being written, now Rambo VI). Yikes...With this movie, we find something very interesting happen. What technology was unable to do and be realistic in the 80s, twenty years of tech-savvy has caught up and turned Rambo into a whole new kind of destruction. What used to be two M-60s and guys flipping to illustrate being shot, now has arrows, 50-cals and flamethrowers (and enough to spare for the 95 minutes its on). When Christian missionaries (woot woot) decide to enter the war zone of Burma, they didn't intend on being captured. They also didn't intend on Rambo and a group of mercenaries coming to the rescue. And boom goes the dynamite...What Rambo has always lacked in convincing power, it has made up in sheer boyhood mayhem. Now, what Rambo lacks in acting and age, it makes up for digital destruction. What we were kept from in a non-digital age, had quickly caught up to make some pretty intense and disgusting scenes (reference modern horror vs historic horror). Though it does make for quite an action movie, you wonder if it's a bit of overkill (play on words. I'm witty I know). The lowdown, Rambo brings back good memories, makes me love the old ones even more, and wishes that Stallone would let the past be the past.

Rambo : B
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