Now Playing: Rambo: First Blood Part II

Original Release May 22, 1985

Rambo: First Blood Part II

Cast:
Sylvester Stallone: John Rambo
Richard Crenna: Colonel Samuel Trautman
Steven Berkoff: Lt. Col. Podovsky
Martin Kove: Ericson

Directed by George P. Cosmatos
Distributed by Sony/Tristar
Written by Sylvester Stallone and James Cameron

I have a confession to make. Before I started this project I have never seen a Rambo movie. But for the sake of being complete, I sat through the first movie so I could watch the second one. I thought it would be important to see how the story progressed as well as gauging how it stands to the test of time. You're welcome.



The first movie (the title splash only reads First Blood even though it is normally listed as Rambo: First Blood) I discovered is based on a book, adapted for the screen by Sylvester Stallone himself. The story goes that John J Rambo has returned from Vietnam and gets harassed by some northwest coast hick policemen. The sherriff, played by Brian Dennehy, and his henchmen, inlcuding a rather young and very red-headed David Caruso, assume the worst of Rambo from the outset, due to the overall dislike for Vietnam war veterans at the time. Rambo's Green Beret training kicks in and he defends himself through blood and guts. Interestingly, the body count for the movie is a grand total of one. And it wasn't even his fault. Granted, a lot of damage got done to the town by the end, and for that, as well as the other trumped up charges, he ends up in custody and sent to prison.

So the second film begins with Rambo's confidant Col.Trautman offering him an alternative to his remaining five years: accept a mission to recon for POWs in Vietnam and receive a Presidential pardon. Accepting his Get Out of Jail Free card, Rambo skipped Go and went straight to Thailand. He is briefed by Marshall Murdock (Charles Napier) that he is to be dropped behind lines, make his way to a suspected POW camp, get photographs and get out. Rambo is a little disappointed he is being told not to engage the enemy because he just wants to blow stuff up.

After he is dropped in the jungle he encounters his guide, Co Bao, who is naturally a very attractive Vietnamese woman, and together they make their way to the camp. Because he really wanted to blow something up, Rambo goes running into the camp and proceeds to kill a few unlucky soldiers. He also rescues one of the prisoners and makes off for the rendezvous point for extraction.

At which point he is betrayed. Murdock orders the extraction team to abandon the mission before pickup. Which basically is akin to ordering your own death sentence.

Rambo and his formerly free prisoner are imprisoned and our hero is subjected to some primal torture: being dipped chest-high in pig feces (How do you manage to get a pit of pig feces that deep? And that fluid?) and getting leeches stuck to him.

And that was before the Russians showed up. Of course it had to be the Russians. This is the Cold War and the Russians were a staple bad guy.

Then it was a stripped spring mattress attached to a battery for electrocution. I only mention this much detail because suddenly I'm thinking of Count Rugen, “What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest. How do you feel?”

Eventually Rambo breaks down and agrees to send a message to base camp. It wasn't the message the Russians were expecting, though.



Then it's wham, bam, explosions, stabbings, beatings, shootings, burnings, and more explosions.

If you need to know how it ended, the camp was destroyed, the Russians and the Vietnamese all killed, the POWs freed, and Rambo threatened Murdock to locate more POWs so he can go rescue them single-handedly, or he'll come back and jumprope with his spine or something. What? Spoilers? There's like 6 more movies or something!

The closing title theme song was horrendous, but it's the type of style I cringed at even back then. There never will be a day I could accept that wailing, sappy ballad crap. Technology to really crack on? The command center showed off some computers and surveillance equipment but there wasn't enough focus on it to care. Typical large aluminum boxes with lots of buttons attached. The most technological piece was the high-tech bow he carried, which was specially crafted for the movie but I'm sure you can buy one almost anywhere they sell sporting bows now.

One thing I noticed was that Part 1 was to Part 2 in nearly the same way that Alien was to Aliens – in that the first was civilian while the second kicked it up quite a few notches by going military with lots of explosions. This is probably due to Rambo: First Blood Part II and Aliens both being written by James Freaking Cameron.  Compared to the first one, it really did nicely keeping the essence of the character, his drive and purpose, without managing to simply rehash the first one. This is definitely a case of the second being as good as the first.

After a production budget of $44 million, the movie had a total US gross of $150,415,432 and an additional international gross of $149,984,568. It spent four weeks at number 1 before finally being supplanted by Cocoon.