Saturday, February 09, 2008
Friday Movie Review (one day late)
Went to Rambo alone. It was an OK action film with politics about as subtle as a .50 BMG to the head. There was a sense of the circle closing in the final scene. In First Blood, what, about 30 years ago? John Rambo is seen walking along the road to visit old friends somewhere in the Great Northwest, now he's walking home in Arizona. Man, you'd think he could aford a rental at least.
This is the longest 90 minute movie ever. The action is riviting but before and between the action it moves the opposite way a cobra does. Stallone is looking kind of freaky at 61--like he's taken steps to hide his age and it hasn't worked out at all.
Anyway, this one takes place in Burma, mostly, the new country we enlightened types love to hate. At least it's a lefty totalitarian one this time. (Burma is the poorest nation in South East Asia after 4 decades of socialist, junta rule where, under British rule and under capitalism after independence, in the 50s, it was the richest country there and the world's chief exporter of rice. Socialism fails, ever single time it's tried). In the movie, there is a genocide of Christian farmers going on (and, to a lesser degree, in reality as well) and Colorado doctors, preachers etc. come to help out. Of course they are killed or captured and Rambo has to come rescue them. The mercenaries hired by Ron Howard's older brother are competent and noble in their own way. The best of them is the Barrett Model 82A1/M107 .50 sniper called school boy. The worst of the Christians is the guy who played the food/lust priest on The Sopranos. What a sniveler. They are stopped on the river by Burmese pirates; and Rambo, when he can't buy them off, takes them all out with a .45 1911. Sniveler says that he's going to have to report Rambo (to whom? and for what, for saving all their lives?) "It's never right to kill." So of course sniveler let's all his friends get killed and then he actually starts to fight and kills a Burmese soldier with a rock. I guess that broad brush sniveling pacifist statement is refuted thus.
There's a lot of .50 rounds going around in the movie and they somewhat realistically make body parts fly off. The combat is intensified by this bloody body chopping, but they show the little AK round doing almost as much damage. Yeah, right.
Let's talk just for a second about the Tallboy bomb. They existed and were effective (sinking, for example the Bismark's sister ship Tirpitz) but were only used in the European Theater. They had inside over 2 and 1/2 tons of Torpex (50% more destructive than TNT) and would have exploded somewhat as was shown in the film. But to think these specialized, hand crafted bombs would be dropped on a Burmese jungle, not penetrate deep inside the loam, and wouldn't have exploded, is just silly.
In fact it was all pretty silly, but in a bloody, full of suffering, sort of way.
This is the longest 90 minute movie ever. The action is riviting but before and between the action it moves the opposite way a cobra does. Stallone is looking kind of freaky at 61--like he's taken steps to hide his age and it hasn't worked out at all.
Anyway, this one takes place in Burma, mostly, the new country we enlightened types love to hate. At least it's a lefty totalitarian one this time. (Burma is the poorest nation in South East Asia after 4 decades of socialist, junta rule where, under British rule and under capitalism after independence, in the 50s, it was the richest country there and the world's chief exporter of rice. Socialism fails, ever single time it's tried). In the movie, there is a genocide of Christian farmers going on (and, to a lesser degree, in reality as well) and Colorado doctors, preachers etc. come to help out. Of course they are killed or captured and Rambo has to come rescue them. The mercenaries hired by Ron Howard's older brother are competent and noble in their own way. The best of them is the Barrett Model 82A1/M107 .50 sniper called school boy. The worst of the Christians is the guy who played the food/lust priest on The Sopranos. What a sniveler. They are stopped on the river by Burmese pirates; and Rambo, when he can't buy them off, takes them all out with a .45 1911. Sniveler says that he's going to have to report Rambo (to whom? and for what, for saving all their lives?) "It's never right to kill." So of course sniveler let's all his friends get killed and then he actually starts to fight and kills a Burmese soldier with a rock. I guess that broad brush sniveling pacifist statement is refuted thus.
There's a lot of .50 rounds going around in the movie and they somewhat realistically make body parts fly off. The combat is intensified by this bloody body chopping, but they show the little AK round doing almost as much damage. Yeah, right.
Let's talk just for a second about the Tallboy bomb. They existed and were effective (sinking, for example the Bismark's sister ship Tirpitz) but were only used in the European Theater. They had inside over 2 and 1/2 tons of Torpex (50% more destructive than TNT) and would have exploded somewhat as was shown in the film. But to think these specialized, hand crafted bombs would be dropped on a Burmese jungle, not penetrate deep inside the loam, and wouldn't have exploded, is just silly.
In fact it was all pretty silly, but in a bloody, full of suffering, sort of way.
Labels: Rambo
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 2:51 PM 
