Joe (First Blood, Part Infinity) Fernbacher, Creem, 10/85
Sly Stallone’s cartoonish hero with a thousand weapons-soon-to-be-action-toys, John Rambo, runs through the jungle zapping Orientals and concomitant Russian meanoids with such unerring velocity (and graphically enough at times to qualify for minor splatter movie status), that by the time you get up to leave the theater, you realize that you haven’t had a single noteworthy thought in your head for the past hour or so, let alone pondered all the accompanying “controversy” surrounding this bit of 80s-ized John Wayneism via The Road Runner. Which to me makes it the perfect summer movie; the perfect let’s-get-bongoed-outta-our-skulls-and-go-to-the-show movie; the perfect fantasy a.k.a. Saturday morning cartoon for those who spend their days and nights either reading Soldier Of Fortune or this week’s issue of The Survivalist Times.
Plot--in case you’re not one of the 70 million or so who’ve seen this epic, and if you’re not, be careful because sometime in the near future, there’s gonna be a knock on your door and the local neighborhood pre-teens are gonna skewer your head to the floor with a barrage of “toy” Rambo recoilless bow & arrows for not being indoctrinated in the “Cult Of Rambo” by either seeing the movie or speaking in monosyllables--is not this film’s strong point. Excuse me, there’s a knock on the door.
The film concerns the release of town-muncher Rambo from prison by Richard Crenna, his former C.O. buddy, to perform a vitally important mission for the ta-ta government. The mission, which he decides to take, is to go back to Nam and photograph a suspected POW camp full of supposed MIAs. You can guess the rest. He goes back to Nam (and kills and maims Orientals and Russians). He finds the POWs (and kills and maims Orientals and Russians). He gets betrayed by the nasty Government Civil Servant, played by Charles Napier, who graced just about all the early Russ Meyer skinathons (and kills and maims some more Orientals and Russians). He gets pissed off, goes on a death rampage, finally rescues everybody and kills everyone who’s either a Russian or an Oriental. He gets ’em all back to the Free World, where he gives a speech about wanting America to love him because he loves it.
Actually, this speech is the best part of the movie because it is not monosyllabic. Incidentally, Rambo: First Blood II was written not only by cinema-laureate Stallone, but by poet James Cameron, who wrote Schwarzenegger’s dialogue in The Terminator.
Rambo: First Blood II is aggressive, magnificently stylized, violent, politically idiotic, fascinating and a phenomenal barometer measuring just exactly where the American psyche currently is--shudder. Stallone is Stallone, nothing more can be said on that subject. I rate this movie 10 Ouzos...Excuse me. I just heard the thump of what sounded like a piece of plastique at my door...
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