Rambo III (1988)

Good movie. Worth buying.

This a good movie but it's not as good as Rambo (4), that one's the best.

I give it an 8.5/10 July 16, 2008

Who are you? Your Worst Nightmare

On the heels of the extremely enjoyable Rambo (Special Edition + Digital Copy) Sid the Elf decided to finally review Rambo III. Also, due to the recent oppresive heat wave that has crashed upon the North Pole, Sid halucinated and thought he was in an Afghan desert, so Rambo III just felt right. However, while First Blood (Special Edition) and Rambo: First Blood, Part 2 were clearly good enough to recieve 5 stars from Sid, Rambo III fell short. Please note that we're talking about the movie here, not the trancendant Rambo III video game on Sega which would recieve roughly 38 out of 5 stars. As always, visit Sid the Elf's Movie World for the Rambo III trailer, all our reviews; and some of our favorite pics, sound clips and videos. If you don't crack up at least 10 times on our site, you don't have a soul. Ok, back to the review.

This time, Rambo is somewhere in Asia living in a Buhddhist monestary--now this is true. And, the first appearence in the film by John J. is at a seedy Asian fight club. He is stick-fighting some guy who looks like he just missed the cut to be in The Samoans. Anyway, Rambo is eventually approached by his old mentor, played by Richard Crenna. He needs Rambo to help him out with a mission in Afghanistan against the Russians. Rambo declines and Crenna predictably gets captured during the mission. So, word gets back to Rambo and he decides to...yep, infiltrate the camp where Crenna is a prisoner and bust him out. Rambo gets some help along the way from Bilo and Bilo's son. They give him some stellar backup, ammo and teach him a new sport. Aparently, in Afganistan, the sport of choice isn't anything remotely cool. No, it's mounting a horse and carrying a gym bag covered in faux fur across a sort of goal line. "Like football," Rambo says. Um, yeah Rambo, kinda. This is one of the funniest and best scenes in the entire film. Not a good sign.

Now, Rambo makes it to the prison camp. He has to take out roughly 78 guys by himself. But, he has the wonderful old explosive tip arrows, a grenade launcher, and a ton of other awesome weapons. This is great and all, but where were these things being stashed? Did Rambo carry them in his black wife-beater? Were they kept in Bilo's cage? It was just a distracting thought. As in all action movies, the hero has to take out the top bad guy after he takes out the top bad guy's henchman. These were the shining moments in Rambo III, well, except for gym bag-horse football. Rambo takes out the henchman in quite possibly the coolest way in action film history. The henchman has Rambo in a ferocious bear-hug. Rambo wraps some rope around the guy's neck, pulls the pins from the grenades hanging from the guy's jacket, gets out of the bear hug, and kicks the guy down a hole leading to a cave. So, as he's decending into the cave he freakin' blows up! This scene is absolutely awesome. Above all else, if you're on the fence about seeing Rambo III, see it for this scene. If you like action at all, you will love this part. Then there is the little matter of Rambo vs. the head bad guy. He was the warden of the prison camp, the Russian Drumgoole. So, this guy is in a helicopter and Rambo is in a tank. These two are moving towards one another, playing chicken, but neither swerve. Sid would love some feedback on this: When the helicopter and tank crash, is it actually realistic that the guy in the helicopter dies and the guy in the tank walks away merely dazed?

Rambo III was a strange entity. It had no descernable plot, terrible acting, and the tired 80's theme of Evil Russians. But, it was a Rambo movie. So, you're guaranteed Stallone and an inordinate amount of explosions which make it watchable. This was an interesting point in Sly's career. Rambo III was preceded by Rambo II, Rocky IV, Cobra, and Over the Top. Impressive. His next film, after Rambo III, was the legendary Lock Up. Very impressive. But, after that, Tango&Cash, Rocky V, Oscar(which bombed but isn't awful), and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. Wow. Nobody loves Sly more than Sid, except for maybe Santa, but this is just a laundry list of crap. Not good times for Sly. Did he and Frank try out their famous lounge singing act during this stretch? Anyway, thankfully Sly recovered and got back on track with...um,(scrolling through imdb feverently)...Rambo(2008) was good! We'll give that one to Sly even if it wasn't him in the movie, just some guy in a Stallone mask.




June 10, 2008

RAMBO III

Stallone returns in RAMBO III trying to rescue a friend behind enemy lines.
This movie is a roller coaster of non stop action.
Stallone as a one man army goes in and takes out the enemy
gets his friend and gets out of dodge.
They are about to the border and the Russian army catch up with them and
you think Rambo is done for, and the Afghanistan rebels arrive.
They win the battle with the help of the rebels.
I rate this movie a 8 from 1to10!! May 8, 2008

zero stars for Rambozo

Part III is so horrible in so many ways that you can't help but learn from it, but inversely and backwardly. Were people even dumber in the 80s? I think on a cultural level, without a doubt. In anycase, Rambo maybe deserves a half star as a fabulous demonstration in Right-Wing Hollywood propaganda. But today you can watch FOX News and observe how this type of propaganda is created and spread. A funny thing though is that the first RAMBO is a good movie. I love it. It is actually good, as hard as that is to remember now. Did you know that in the book (the original film is based on) Rambo's commanding officer shoots him in the head at the end? April 4, 2008

"Time Sensitive Movie"

This is a perfect exemple of a time sensitive movie,the material in it has a different impact that it had back in 1988.After First Blood parts 1 and 2,Sylvester Stallone returns for a third time as his famed character John Rambo.This time Stallones takes Rambo to Afghanistan.What is ironic thought is that Rambo is fighting WITH the afghan people wheras today,since since 9/11 they aren`t exactly liked.That is one bad thing about Rambo III,it is out of date and can no longer appeal to modern crowds because of that.Unless you saw it before that but even then it doesn`t feel right to know that an American hero is fighting alongside ennemies.At the time Stallone wanted to show solidarity for the freedom fighters of afghan against the Russian.Add to that the fact that this is very unrealistic and it just lost whatever appeal it had left.It is to note that Stallone looks even more impressive than he did in the second Rambo and was probably at his peak.

John Rabo heads to Afghanistan in order to save his handler Colonel Trautman.At the beggening of the movie we see Rambo fighting in a monastery living a quiet life.He learns the news about Trautman and quickly leaves to rescue him.The storyline is pretty good and captivating but the execution of the plan is somewhat left to be desired.One thing great about the movie is of course the loads of action but also the fight that Trautman fights alongside Rambo in war scenes and shows what he`s capable of,and there was much to expect after all,he was the one who trained Rambo in the first place.It is pretty unrealistic,but in this one it`s gotten pretty bad I have to say.For exemple Rambo drives a tank and fires at the same time,yet the Russians need a full crew just to maneuver the tank funny isn`t it?One thing I hated about the movie is when John gives his necklace,which was the only thing he had left from the Vietnamese girl he meets in First Blood Part II who saved his life to some kid who wants it.It should have been more important to him.There is plenty of action but you can`t mask the fact that it lacks something behind the action.


The special features.The features from previous releases are gone for the most part.The first Rambo had the alternate endings while this one has pretty much nothing.There are trailers for the movie,retrospectives and that`s about it.There are many possibilities for audio and visual which gives way to many options to set the movie to your liking with the metascopes and other modes that let you watch the film in different ways.I wonder why they cutted the extras,they did the same for the Rocky remasters.My advice : if you have the older versions don't get these you won't get anything new.its not worth it.If you cans score one of these "Special Editions" then you might consider yourself to have gotten a great deal.Those "Ultimate Editions" aren't so ultimate after all.

"Rambo III" gets mixed reactions.It does not suit everyone be advised so have to know a minimum on the movie before you actually rent and/or buy it.As mentionned above those editions aren't the best and the older editions are much better.Yet this one is easier to find and ainvailable nearly everywhere DVDs are sold which is pretty much the only advantage with these Ultimate editions.You can also save a lot by buying the "Ultimate Edition" boxed set of the first three Rambo.Overral,a solid sequel definatly worth seeing.Not the best Rambo but plenty of action and entertaiment here.You can't go wrong by picking this up if you are a fan of action movies and/or Sylvester Stalone,I liked both so this definatly worked for me.

NOTE: A few weeks prior to writting this review the fourth Rambo was released,"Rambo",in theatres January 25th 2008 March 9, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...