RAMBO 3 MOVIE COVER FULL
RAMBO 3 MOVIE COVER SERIES

Personally, I think Rambo III is a decent action flick, with action that is head and shoulders above Part IIвЂ™s standing still while firing a machine gun and grimacing nonsense, but come on. Why was Rambo III destined to be forgotten? For one thing, it came out in the summer of 1988, the same summer that would grace the world with a little movie called Die Hard. Now Rambo has no choice but to get back into the Commie-stabbing, explosive-arrow-shooting game in order to rescue his friend from the dastardly Soviets, and he makes some interesting new friends along the way. Undeterred, Trautman decides to do the mission himself, despite being a 62 year-old man who probably gets winded walking up a flight of stairs, and is immediately captured.

Plus, Trautman is accompanied by Kurtwood Smith, and everybody knows better than to trust the guy who played Clarence Bodicker from Robocop. John politely declines, since getting twice screwed over by the government has left him a little gun-shy. Trautman (Richard Crenna), who offers him a job sneaking into Afghanistan and messing with the Soviets. After being hassled by вЂThe ManвЂ™ and re-waging war with Vietnam, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) now lives a simple life of Buddha repair and competitive stick fighting. In case you havenвЂ™t seen it, the story goes something like this. The real reason no one remembers Rambo III is that it suffered from catastrophically bad timing that only got worse with age. It has little to do with quality (I rather liked it, actually). When I returned to the movie all these years later, it dawned on me why it had faded quietly into obscurity. The only thing notable about the third instalment seemed to be how little people made note of it. Rambo III made a little over a third of what the previous sequel had raked in domestically. I only assumed IвЂ™d seen the third movie, but really had never gotten around to it. The big surprise came when I realized all my hazy memories of Rambo III were really the scenes with the Russians from Part II mixed with a few scenes from the trailer. First Blood was still a great as ever, but Rambo: First Blood Part II infuriates me just as much as it used to. It turned out to be less of a reappraisal than a confirmation.

RAMBO 3 MOVIE COVER SERIES

I often wondered if I had unfairly written off the Rambo sequels, so twenty years later, when the ultra-violent and simply titled Rambo arrived in 2008, I picked up the complete series Blu-ray pack for a reappraisal. My pallet has since widened to encompass the subtle charms of Direct-to-Video face pounders, the excess of big-budget extravaganzas, and all flavors of martial arts, from Bruce Lee to Iko Uwais.

RAMBO 3 MOVIE COVER FULL

I was cinematically unsophisticated in those days, though, without a full appreciation of the action genre. The franchise had become a bore, as had StalloneвЂ™s monosyllabic, Planet Hollywood sized ego. When Rambo III (the title still doesnвЂ™t make sense, but I suppose it is better than Rambo II: First Blood Part III) exploded onto the screen in вЂ™88, it barely left an impression. Plus, he rides a motorcycle and jumps off a mountain into a tree! My appreciation for the character dipped dramatically when he returned three years later in the awkwardly titled Rambo: First Blood Part II.В Being a cynical middle schooler, I felt they had changed the character from a good man pushed too far into a jingoistic Reagan era cartoon. I was a bit too young to grasp the strong anti-war message, or to appreciate StalloneвЂ™s gut-wrenching emotional breakdown by the end, but I always connected to his sad, quiet decency. I spent my formative years watching First Blood on a heavy HBO rotation, loving every moment. For most of my life, I have followed along behind him, though not always eagerly. ItвЂ™s been a long, bumpy road for John Rambo, Sylvester StalloneвЂ™s muscle bound, bandana wearing icon of вЂ™80s hypermasculinity.

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