Rambo: First Blood, Part II.

Rambo on the warpath.

Release Date: May 22, 1985. Running Time: 96 minutes. Screenplay: Sylvester Stallone, James Cameron. Producer: Buzz Feitshans. Director: George P. Cosmatos.


THE PLOT:

Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is well into his sentence for the events of the first film, doing hard labor in a prison work camp, when he receives a visitor: Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna). His old CO has a mission for him, with the possibility of a Presidential pardon at the end of it. The job? To go into Vietnam to scout a suspected POW camp, and to take photographs of any evidence of American prisoners.

The man in charge of the operation is Murdock (Charles Napier), a major who seems more concerned with politics than actual results. Rambo accepts the mission despite his distrust of Murdock, parachuting into Vietnam and meeting up with his contact, Co (Julia Nickson). She expects to find nothing but an empty camp. Instead, they discover several POWs, who are still being actively tortured by the Vietnamese army.

Though his orders are only to take pictures, Rambo can't make himself leave a prisoner to be tortured.  He rescues the man before fleeing to the extraction point. When Murdock learns that Rambo has "one of ours," however, he orders his men to abort the extraction - leaving Rambo at the mercy of an old enemy...

The men in charge: Murdock (Charles Napier) and Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna).

CHARACTERS:

Rambo: Somehow, all of Rambo's PTSD issues have vanished during his incarceration... because unlike the first film, this is basically a cartoon that has no room for psychological complexity. Still, even if Rambo has been flattened out to two dimensions, Stallone remains quite good, playing the character and not himself. Key to his success is his nonverbal acting. He absorbs what others say around him, but he says relatively little himself. I have seen some reviews comment on Rambo's sudden technophobia, but I actually think this is justified. I don't interpret his disdain as being for technology itself; he uses technology (helicopters, rocket launchers, exploding arrows) repeatedly. I think what he disdains is Murdock's belief that technology is a complete replacement for human ingenuity and training.

Col. Trautman: Richard Crenna continues to project authority and integrity. This is fortunate, because Trautman is more plot device than character. He springs Rambo for the mission, then expresses his outrage after Murdock abandons the extraction. Most of his scenes amount to either acting as the Voice of Moral Authority or as Rambo's Cheerleader, and many of his bits honestly could have been cut without being missed.

Murdock: A weasel, which actor Charles Napier makes evident in body language and attitude from his very first scene. His dismissiveness toward Rambo in the early scenes recalls Sheriff Teasle's reactions at the start of First Blood - but even Teasle would hold Murdock in contempt. He's an obvious bureaucrat who can't even fully handle the climate of Thailand from the inside of a base (that, given all the computer equipment, has to be air conditioned). In case we've missed that we're supposed to hate him, the script has him stake a claim to having been involved in a military operation in 1966... which Rambo privately tells Trautman has to be a lie, since the company he claimed to be with was actually somewhere else entirely.

Lt. Col. Sergie T. Podovsky: This being the mid-'80s, the movie has to bring in the Russians as the real villains, as personified by perpetual '80s movie bad guy Steven Berkoff. Save for adopting a cod Russian accent, there's no daylight between Podovsky and Berkoff's Beverly Hills Cop baddie Victor Maitland. If you told me this character was Maitland pretending to be Russian for the sake of illegal drug smuggling operations, I would entirely believe you. Still, Berkoff is well cast, his cold sadism a contrast to Rambo's anger.

Co Phuong Bao: Julia Nickson, a television mainstay in the '80s and '90s, is a bit too gorgeous; I doubt most covert missions in the jungle include access to a full cosmetics kit, and backing off on the makeup for most of the film would have made for a stronger contrast when she does make herself up as a prostitute to infiltrate the camp. Still, credit to this very '80s film for providing Rambo with a non-white female partner who is shown to be smart, resourceful, and loyal. Less credit goes to the attempt to shoehorn in a romance. The two actors are fine as partners, but they have zero romantic chemistry, and the scene-and-a-half creating the "love story" boasts by far the worst writing in the picture.

Rambo and Co (Julia Nickson), watching the POW camp.

DUMBER THAN IT NEEDED TO BE...:

Rambo: First Blood, Part II won the Golden Raspberry Award as 1985's Worst Picture. I can only think that Sylvester Stallone must have done something to personally offend the Razzie voters, because there is no way that this could be seriously considered to be the worst film of any year - but I will admit that it's dumb. Dumber, in fact, than it needed to be.

The first draft, by James Cameron, had the same basic story and action beats, but it also retained references to Rambo's PTSD and took time to characterize some of the Vietnamese soldiers. When author David Morrell wrote his (excellent) novelization, he referred to the Cameron script as "a gold bar" and estimated that his book version was equal parts Cameron script, Stallone script, and his own original material. Meanwhile, Cameron himself was appalled by the final film, and made sure to never again write a script where he lacked any control over the final result (though after the back-to-back successes of The Terminator and Aliens, that likely didn't require him to take much of a stand).

Possibly the stupidest moment is the mid-film plot twist, that sees Murdock ordering his men to abandon Rambo's extraction. This was witnessed and recorded, and it would certainly have leaked to the press.  A few scenes later, we later learn that Podovsky intercepted and recorded the conversation... meaning that if all else failed, the Soviets would have leaked it to make the U. S. look bad.  The resulting PR nightmare would have been far worse than Murdock's angry speculation to Trautman about veterans going on the news wanting "to start the war all over again"... and while Murdock may be a weasel, he doesn't come across as moronic enough to not realize this.

Heck, given the excitement of the military men when they hear that Rambo has rescued a live POW, Trautman returning empty-handed would certainly be noted. When Trautman is later placed under house arrest, this combined with the fact that the colonel outranks Murdock leaves me suspecting Rambo might just return to find Murdock and his henchmen in confinement.

The movie is highly inconsistent in its portrayal of the POWs and their condition. We first see them looking half-dead, with rats and spiders crawling around in their cage and even on them. When Rambo rescues one, he has to carry the man because he can barely walk. At the climax, however, these same POWs are suddenly combat-ready. Not only do they know how to use high-grade military equipment despite having spent more than ten years in cages - They still have the upper body strength to aim and fire heavy machine guns effectively. 1983's Uncommon Valor (directed by First Blood's Ted Kotcheff) handled a similar POW rescue more believably, showing POWs who were incapacitated and, in some cases no longer English-fluent. Then again, Uncommon Valor at least tried to be a real movie, while Rambo: First Blood, Part II is a live action cartoon.

This makes no sense at all if you stop to think about it...
but, like most of the film's action, it sure is fun to watch.

...BUT IT'S A WHOLE LOT OF FUN:

Still... that very cartoonishness is this film's salvation. This is comic book pulp, with an invincible hero squaring off against a hissing villain and a spineless bureaucrat. If the first film was carried by the performances of Stallone and Brian Dennehy, then the second film is carried by skillful editing and by Jerry Goldsmith's score, which is finely calculated to get your adrenaline going.  This is super-dumb and over-the-top, with the last thirty minutes amounting to an extended action piece... but it's canny enough to embrace those qualities, which makes it highly watchable.

The final thirty minutes boasts some fantastic action scenes. Yes, Rambo's one-man-army act doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny; for some of his attacks to work, he has to know exactly where his enemies are going to be before they get there, with no advance scouting time. But if you care about such things, you're already watching the wrong movie. You get Rambo attacking from under the mud, Rambo blowing up people and buildings alike with exploding arrows, Rambo commandeering a helicopter to fly the POWs to safety, and a well-directed helicopter standoff between him and Podovsky. All backed by Jerry Goldsmith's terrific score.  

Col. Podovsky (Steven Berkoff) - an old-fashioned, hissing villain.

OVERALL:

If there's any doubt that the Razzies had it in for Stallone, note that the equally idiotic-but-enjoyable Rocky IV also was nominated for Worst Picture, despite it also being a tremendous popular success. The Razzie voters should have held their fire; it wasn't too many years later before Stallone started turning out some actual bad movies, rather than this well-turned popcorn fun that just happened to be incredibly stupid.

If you're in the mood for culture, then I understand that Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth is excellent, and I genuinely look forward to watching it. But if you're in the mood for some mindless action, then Rambo: First Blood, Part II fits the bill just fine.

Break out the popcorn and beer, turn your brain off, and enjoy the 'splosions. If you feel a twinge of guilt, just remind yourself that this isn't any dumber than your average Michael Bay flick - and at a brisk 96 minutes, it's a heck of a lot shorter.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Film: First Blood
Next Film: Rambo III

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