Rambo III

For a movie made so long ago, it's so good! I have seen my fare share of poor movies and this is a much better movie than average! Ok there's no love interest but I didn't even realise until looking through this site! It's so action packed that you won't want to go to the fridge for snacks! Ha! Also a few jokes in this that made me laugh!

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.)

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.

Believe me RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART 2 took some swallowing but the opening ten minutes of RAMBO 3 caused me to fall out of my chair in shock . John Rambo does prize fighting to earn his keep in a Buddhist commune ! I mean that`s a bit like having a film where the hero`s an environmentalist who goes around blowing oil rigs to save the Alaskan wilderness . Oh wait a minute didn`t Steven Seagal ....

Despite this incredible and vain attempt at character development there follows much dialogue that accurately reflects what is going on in Afghanistan in the mid 1980s . The Soviet - Afghan war actually intensified when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and by that time over one million Afghans had died in the conflict while as many as five million had been forced over the border into Iran and Pakistan as what analysts at the time called " Migratory genocide " , a euphemism that people nowadays would describe as " Ethnic cleansing " . There`s other parts of the film that points out that screenwriter Sheldon Lettich has done his homework on the conflict with factual things like Soviet conscripts defecting to the Mujahedeen , of the red army planting mines and booby traps disguised as toys to blow off the limbs of children and of the Soviets use of chemical weapons which almost certainly proves that the sloppy script of FIRST BLOOD PART 2 was mainly down to James Cameron than Stallone , but as you`d expect in this type of action adventure movie the script rapidly degenerates into a series of set pieces of an all American superman blowing up a bunch of nasty commies who can`t shoot straight . Ah well at least the main commie isn`t played by a British actor unlike in the last film . Oh and congratulations to Peter McDonald for at least trying to make a Puma helicopter look like a Soviet helicopter gunship . The previous director was under the impression that the Soviets and Viet Cong use American Hueys

Setting the record straight : A lot of people prove how ignorant they are of the Soviet - Afghan war by confusing the Mujahedeen with the Taliban . The Mujahedeen ( Translated " The soldiers of God " ) and the Taliban ( Translated " The students of God " ) are entirely seperate things . The Taliban were created in Pakistan in the early 1990s , took over Afghanistan in 1995 and were led by Mullah Omar . The Mujahedeen were split into several different groups and were led by different leaders ( None of them called Bin Laden ) most of them forming a coalition against the Taliban called the Northern Alliance in 1995/96 . Their overall leader was the legendary guerilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud who was murdered in a suicide bombing by Al Qai`da terrorists in September 2001 . It was the Northern Alliance who fought side by side with the Western coalition during their campaign to overthrow the Taliban government in 2001 to the present day

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.