Rambo (2008)

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz


Synopsis: We find a somewhat retired looking Rambo hunting for king cobras in the wild plains of Thailand and selling them to some creepy underground snake-fighting pen (as you do) when suddenly and without warning a gimpy bald guy asks him to lead him and his group of bible bashers into the midst of a war-torn Burma. Being the hot blooded, war seeking, wild action hero he is he dives right in like so many blood thirsty lunatics before him! No, not really. He tells the dude to fuck off but when his slightly prettier blonde girlfriend says "paaaweeeeeeeaaaaaaaase?" how can he refuse?
Explosions and many many exploding blood-red bodies ensue!


Review: The perfect movie!

I kid you not. Rambo, as we all know, is an 80's action icon so there's two ways that a sequel this far away from the awesomely violent (non pg-13) blood curdling, foul mouthed action films of that era could go.

It could turn itself into a mock-up of itself and play to the inherent humor that lies underneath any super-macho action flick and end up with a bunch of stupid mumbling teens muttering that "Well it was fun but it wasn't as good as Hot Shots!". It would be hilarious and make millions! (And swiftly be forgotten about within a month of it's release)

Or Sly Stallone could say "Live to make an R-rated bloody, fucking serious motherfucker of a sequel, or die (Hard with a vengeance) for nothing!".And that he did!

Let's list the awesome things about this film

• The film was filled with blood flying from every area of anyone's body that it could possibly splatter out from.
• The "plot" and vague hint at any idea of a romance for John Rambo was short-lived and only served (rightfully so) as brief moments in between the carnage with which to catch your breath.
• There were fucking gun fights. Not just gun fights, fucking gun fights. Never have I felt so invigorated when someone was blown into pieces than during some of the battles (Which were more like one sided massacres really)during this film!
• Sometimes, after about a thousand people had been blown up, sliced, stabbed, shot or smashed they would play sad music to give you the sads thus making the movie deep - before getting right back to explosions and gun fights
• It was only 90 minutes long! Definitely something lacking in the modern action flick is the film-makers ability to not jerk it off into a 2 - 2 1/2 hour fucking epic. Action films should be 90 minutes long and no longer! Any longer and it's a piece of trash trying to pass itself off as decent entertainment.

In Short: The only reason to not give this 5 smileys out of 5 is because there was dialogue in the film which frankly, brought me down.


Biggest Positive: The shakespearian quality the film has in that we, the audience, the observers are aware of the inevitability and the fate by which all the characters in the film will fall even before they, the characters, themselves could be aware of such.
(i.e. you know whenever Rambo shows up some fucks are about to get their shit fucked up, son!)


Biggest Negative: Too much romance, not enough human killing.


Trivia: Before this film was filmed there, Burma was a neutral peace-loving country but the film's explosions and gun fights sparked off a civil war that has raged the country for the past 60 years. For this reason Sylvester Stallone was unjustly sought out and captured by the United Nations for crimes against humanity. A crime which he is only partly responsible for. He promptly escaped his maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help and if you can find him, maybe you can hire Sylvester Stallone.


The Official Rambo Movie Website

Iron Man

If you like loud obnoxious metal music, gay CG explosions, "heroes" who are drunken lay-about sleaze mongers who have absolutely none of the characteristics that make us feel empathy and/or sympathy towards them and villains who seem to have no world-conquering motive then you'll love Iron Man!


Seriously... is it just me or is part of what make the great superheroes great the fact that we can relate to them on some level? Even the high and mighty billionaire Bruce Wayne has an extreme vulnerability that makes us side with him when he's battling villains but this Tony Stark prick has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever!

Sure, it makes him suave, cool and "macho" but it also makes him a gormless fool who I frankly was hoping was going to be blown up in the opening moments of the movie. He'd probably have made a good bad guy for Spider-man, actually! I'd have been on his side then, if the drunken fuck-headed Tony Stark was battling it out with the Amazing Spider-man then maybe I could have been like "That Iron Man kicks ASS man!" but I'd probably just have been hoping that he was played by Willem Dafoe.

In short, Tony Stark/Iron Man was a hero for people who don't really like super heroes, in my opinion. He was a sort of "Die Hard" action hero character who, in that setting, we can all side with because he's bad-ass, doesn't give a fuck and doesn't stop till all the bad guys are dead and everything around them has blown up.

So let me add to my opening statement:

If you like piss-poor heavy metal, dumb-ass explosion-riddled battle sequences, alcoholic dead-beat heroes and you don't actually like super hero movies, you'll love Iron Man.

And if anyone tells you this film was better than The Dark Knight (Especially if the person telling you is Robert Downey Junior) then kick them hard in the nuts.

Tropic Thunder

Apparently there are these things called "cinemas" in which people go to see movies on a big screen along with a bunch of people they don't know. I normally review movies that appear on a much smaller screen on th television in my home but I'm pretty sure the premise is pretty much the same... here's hoping. If this review doesn't make any sense then you probably have to project the entire thing onto a 30 feet wide screen and charge people $10 to see it for it to become clear what's going on.

Anyhoo, on with the show review.


Tropic Thunder is a movie in which a group of actors making a film about the Vietnamese war end up fighting there own little Vietnamese war for real! It's a bit like The Three Amigos only with a lot more swearing, blood, explosions, gun fire and actual comedy which makes people laugh. (Or should I say it was about a bunch of dudes, playing dudes who were pretending to be dudes, playing dudes disguised as other dudes?... no, I shouldn't... ok)
It was written, directed, mixed, produced, starred and was filmed by Ben Stiller. Yes the Ben Stiller who was coincidentally the Producer of one of the last films I reviewed (The Ruins) but have no fear, this isn't becoming a Ben Stiller themed review blog.
That would be interesting but incredibly pointless and creepy.

The trailers for this film show you clearly and accurately how humorous the film is.
They also tell you how gun-totingly awesome the action scenes might be.
They also ruin one of the funniest jokes in the film.
What the trailers do not prepare you for is the Tom Cruise.

If like me you had no idea that Tom Cruise was in this film then you can send me a nice blank check in thanks for my kind warning.

I was not so lucky.

No, instead I see a rather dazzling performance which blew me away by one of the few people in the film that I didn't at least recognize from somewhere. I spend the whole movie thinking "This guy is fucking hilarious! Why can't I picture what movie he's been in... he has to have been in something?" and giving him random standing ovations because of his comical timing with words such as "cunt", "fuck" and "cocksucker". Once you've spent the whole movie wishing some sort of comedy Oscar to this vast unknown balding fellow, applauding his every dance step and twirl and cheering at every moment he's on screen... at the very moment when you have decided to relinquish all your worldly possessions to this strangely amusing stranger... right then he'll take off his glasses and you'll see those eyebrows.

It may, as it did me, take you until the actual credits for you to really be sure it was him, but believe me... it was...

You'll then realize that his whole plan was, in fact, for you to relinquish all your worldly possessions to him and join his deranged little cult.
Alas, it will be too late and upon viewing the film you'll realize that you've actually signed your life away to Fictionology and are forever doomed... all because you forgot Tom Cruise can actually, on rare occasions (at least twice) actually act well in a role you wouldn't expect and blow you away...

Curse you Tom Cruise. You've won this round, but I'll get you yet...

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go take a scouring pad to my eyeballs to try and unsee what has been seen.



UPDATE: (08 - 19 - 08) By the way, all the people protesting this movie because of the use of certain words they say are "demeaning" are retards.