Rambo III

Rambo III is one of my favorite movies of all time. After Rambo rescues the American POWs in Vietnam he moves to Thailand and works in a Buddhist monastary. He keeps in shape by stick fighting and doing construction work around the monastary. Sam Trautman and Eric's father from "That '70's Show." Ask Rambo for his help because Trautman is on a mission to deliver Stinger Missiles to the rebels fighting the Soviets. Trautman later gets caught by the Soviets, and Eric's father tells Rambo at the monastary about Trautman getting captured. To make a long story short Rambo gets his equipment ready, (detonators and of course BLUE LIGHTS)and heads off to Afghanistan. It takes awhile for the Afghan Tribes to accept Rambo (they think he's a lost tourist.) The fighting and gun fights are so far-fetched that you gotta love it. The climax of the film is awesome. Rambo and Truatman get conered by the Soviets, and Rambo says his famous one liner "F_ck Them!" and starts shoot'n gernades at the soviet army. With the help of the Afghan Tribesmen, Rambo jumps into a burning Soviet tank and squares off against a evil soviet commander in a attack helicopter. Rambo kills the soviet commander by shooting the tanks machine gun into the helicopter's cockpit and rams the tank into the helicopter blowing it into millions of pieces! and of course Rambo survives. I give this movie 7/10

I was wondering going in how "Rambo III" would differ from "Rambo II" besides the location. I didn't expect it to be anything like "First Blood," but why would I like this one if I did?

"Rambo III" was based in Afghanistan, which was really relevant in 1988. The Afghans fought the invading Russians from about 1979 to 1989. The U.S. had a rooting interest in that conflict because Russia was our biggest threat on the world stage. "Rambo III" did a fine job in limiting any U.S. rhetoric and focused on the people of Afghanistan and their plight, because after all, they were the ones being slaughtered and displaced, not Americans.

"Rambo III" made an action movie into a human interest movie in a smooth fluid manner. Yes, Rambo wanted to save his Colonel, but it's clear the movie didn't want to overlook the Afghan people and make it all about Rambo and Colonel Murdock (Charles Napier).

Early in the movie Rambo said that his favorite sport was football. Later in the movie we got a football moment when Rambo, in a tank, went head up with the Russian commander who was in a gunship helicopter. They lined up and barreled toward each other like a running back and a linebacker on the goal line. I won't play spoiler, but I will say that that scene was a synopsis of the movie and the entire Cold War. Two powerhouses were lined up going head to head. We now know the winner of that goal line stance, but in 1988 the eventual winner was very uncertain.

Having single-handedly defeated the Vietcong in First Blood Part II, there was no going back for John Rambo: once a tortured soul, he was now a larger-than-life comic-book hero righting the world's wrongs through extreme violence and that was how he would have to stay in order to keep his fans happy. Rambo's next mission would have to be bigger, the villains more evil, and the body count higher. With the US in the midst of a cold war with Russia, the answer was obvious: send Rambo to kick Russian butt in Afghanistan.

Armed with a knife that would shame Crocodile Dundee, several big guns, and his trusty bow with explosive-tipped arrows, Rambo frees his ex-commanding officer Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) from a Soviet fort and liberates the Mujahadin, laying waste to hundreds of the enemy in the process.

But while the film's numerous battle scenes certainly deliver on the promise of much carnage, with some of the biggest on-screen explosions of the 80s, the film offers little in the way of genuine excitement or tension thanks to Rambo being virtually indestructible. The spectacular action also has the effect of making proceedings seem rather dull whenever Stallone eases off the trigger, resulting in this film being a marginally less enjoyable affair overall than the previous movies.

Ironically, for all of Rambo III's glorification of violence in the name of a noble cause, the closing message, dedicating the film to 'the gallant people of Afghanistan', unintentionally but effectively illustrates the futility of war.

With the highest budget of the three movies, the movie certainly looks expensive, with an epic scope at times. But you never quite get the feeling that the movie settles into a comfortable groove. Though the action sequences have plenty of gunshots and explosions, the way they are filmed - and edited - doesn't have the right impact or flow, like the action sequences in the second installment.

In another comparison to the second installment, the story - while as sparse as this one - certainly kept moving. Here there are a number of segments that move very slowly and/or don't seem to have much purpose. The movie should have gotten down to business. The uneven flow of the movie also suffers near the end, as if the movie all of a sudden decides it needs to wrap things up in a few minutes, making the final battle almost come out of nowhere.

(In fairness to the director, it should be pointed out that he was a sudden replacement after original director Russell Mulcahy was fired, and had only ONE DAY to prepare to helm the rest of the movie.)

Like the previous installment, there is some dumb dialogue, but this time around it's not delivered in a slight tongue-in-cheek manner. If they had been willing to show this time around that they weren't taking things so seriously, it would have helped. You might say that the actor playing the Russian commander is not playing things seriously, but he goes SO over the top that he's embarrassing.

It's watchable, but disappointing - they had the chance to make a kick-ass action movie here.

By the way, the Afghans that Rambo helps in this movie are *NOT* the Taliban. People seem to forget that Afghanistan is made up of a number of different tribes. You can tell these particular Afghans are not the Taliban, because (among other things), the women are not completely covered, and the men play the traditional Afghan game with horses and a goat's skin (forbidden by the Taliban.)

After decades I have seen it again on Netflix. Great pictures and well executed combat scenes with the Russian military helicopters. Good actors who played their roles perfectly.

Interesting to see Sylvester Stallone that I like very much as actor.

Now I am curious to see Rambo 4 and the last one part 5. This legendary franchise merits 7/10.