Rambo (2008)
Thursday 29 November 2007
I've written about the new Rambo film on here before, but since then the movie has gone through several name changes and a couple of new teaser trailers have been released, and neither are encouraging.
Here's the original trailer, in high-res AVI format (25mb).
Let's not beat around the bush here - that's a great fucking trailer. I mean, it's an odd thing to say, but that level of mindless gore is almost unprecedented in the modern climate. It's almost refreshing.
And here's the second trailer.
I find it quite interested that Stallone, who's basically running this entire project, has made some significant changes to the feel of this second trailer. The music is very much Black Hawk Downish with a cheesy monologue, and it's nowhere near as brutal as the first one. What's also true is that if I'd only seen the second trailer, I'd pretty much think this was going to suck.
And here's the third trailer. Which is fucking awful. It looks like something MTV put together.
The film is now going to be called Rambo. I liked John Rambo, as it implied a bit more of an intellectual (for want of a much better word) take on the character, and tied in nicely with Rocky Balboa, but thank the good Lord they've dropped Rambo IV: To Hell and Back, which is just about the worst name for a sequel ever.
Here's a link to the official site, and here's a featurette about the film.
Stallone claims the picture is about "humanity", and it's safe to say it appears to be offering a familiar but vaguely interesting take on whether conflict can ever be resolved by goodwill or the establishment of a discourse, as opposed to more violence. The jury's always going to be out on that one, although given that it's a Rambo feature you can be pretty sure the closing message is going to be soundly right wing.
Burnett: Please. It will help change people's lives.
John J. Rambo: You bringing any weapons?
Burnett: Of course not.
John J. Rambo: Then you ain't changin' nothin'.
Quite.
In case you're not sporting a semi quite yet, here are some promotional pics:
The risk here is that Stallone couldn't decide whether to really go back to a First Blood-style introspective look at the character or to make a super-violent 80s-style post-pub flick, and ends up with something messy in-between. I think if I had to make a choice I'd go for a film that was closer to the latter, as per the original trailer, although the various bits and pieces that I've seen and the comments made by Stallone himself suggests to me that he was possibly trying to make this one a tad more worthy. Let's not kid ourselves - both the previous Rambo sequels are pretty poor. I don't want any more of that, and I'm pretty sure Stallone doesn't either. We'll have to wait and see exactly what he ends up with. I just hope it's not as lost as those new trailers seem to imply.
Released on January 25, 2008 in the States and February 22 in the UK.
posted by Sheamus @ 10:00 am
