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Rambo

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Rambo (2008)

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Reviews Counted:140

Fresh:52

Rotten:88

Average Rating:4.8/10

Consensus: Sylvester Stallone knows how to stage action sequences, but the movie's uneven pacing and excessive violence (even for the franchise) is more nauseating than entertaining.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults, grisly images and language.

Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins

Genre: Action/Adventure

Theatrical Release:Jan 25, 2008 Wide

Box Office: $42,724,402

Synopsis: Twenty years after the last film in the series, John Rambo (SYLVESTER STALLONE) has retreated to northern Thailand, where he's running a longboat on the Salween River. On the nearby Thai-Burma... Twenty years after the last film in the series, John Rambo (SYLVESTER STALLONE) has retreated to northern Thailand, where he's running a longboat on the Salween River. On the nearby Thai-Burma (Myanmar) border, the world's longest-running civil war, the Burmese-Karen conflict, rages into its 60th year. But Rambo, who lives a solitary, simple life in the mountains and jungles fishing and catching poisonous snakes to sell, has long given up fighting, even as medics, mercenaries, rebels and peace workers pass by on their way to the war-torn region.

That all changes when a group of human rights missionaries search out the "American river guide" John Rambo. When Sarah (JULIE BENZ) and Michael Bennett (PAUL SCHULZE) approach him, they explain that since last year's trek to the refugee camps, the Burmese military has laid landmines along the road, making it too dangerous for overland travel. They ask Rambo to guide them up the Salween and drop them off, so they can deliver medical supplies and food to the Karen tribe. After initially refusing to cross into Burma, Rambo takes them, dropping off Sarah, Michael and the aid workers...

Less than two weeks later, pastor Arthur Marsh (KEN HOWARD) finds Rambo and tells him the aid workers did not return and the embassies have not helped locate them. He tells Rambo he's mortgaged his home and raised money from his congregation to hire mercenaries to get the missionaries, who are being held captive by the Burmese army. Although the United States military trained him to be a lethal super soldier in Vietnam, decades later Rambo's reluctance for violence and conflict are palpable, his scars faded, yet visible. However, the lone warrior knows what he must do...

Sylvester Stallone writes, directs and stars as RAMBO, filmed on location in and around Chiang Mai, Thailand. Also starring are Julie Benz (Dexter), Paul Schulze (The Sopranos), Matthew Marsden (Resident Evil: Extinction, Black Hawk Down), Graham McTavish (HBO's Rome), Rey Gallegos (American Wedding), Tim Kang ("Third Watch"), Jake La Botz (Ghost World), Maung Maung Khin and Ken Howard. RAMBO is produced by Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton and John Thompson. Executive producers Randall Emmett, George Furla. Executive Producers Jon Feltheimer, Peter Block, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein. Executive Producers Andreas Thiesmeyer, Josef Lautenschlager. Executive Producers Danny Dimbort, Boaz Davidson, Trevor Short. --© Lionsgate
[More]

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden, Graham McTavish

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden, Graham McTavish, Rey Gallegos, Jake LaBotz, Tim Kang, Ken Howard

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Director: Sylvester Stallone
Screenwriter: Sylvester Stallone, Art Monterastelli
Producer: Sylvester Stallone, Avi Lerner, John Thompson, Kevin King
Composer: Brian Tyler
Studio: Lions Gate Films

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Release:

May 27, 2008

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Reviews for Rambo

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1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z)
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This film is like a bull in a China shop -- it just keeps charging forward, destroying everything in its path.

Full Review Source: KPBS.org | comment Comment
02/03/08
Beth Accomando
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org

After lying low for 20 years, Rambo massacres 1000 men. Best sequel of the series. I'm looking forward to Rambo V.

Full Review Source: FilmsInReview.com | comment 1 Comment
01/30/08
Victoria Alexander
Victoria Alexander
FilmsInReview.com

Torture porn probably makes this movie seem quaint.

Full Review Source: Premiere Magazine | comment Comment
01/25/08
Eric Alt
Eric Alt
Premiere Magazine

Damned if Stallone doesn't get us rooting for Rambo to kick bad-guy butt one more time, the same way we cheered on Rocky's improbable return.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
01/28/08
Ethan Alter
Ethan Alter
Film Journal International

Stallone's previous film, Rocky Balboa (2006), was a highly personal and surprisingly touching film. But Rambo shows no such justification for its existence.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
01/24/08
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

The hero’s iconic inertia is photographed against molten skies or Judgment Day sunsets, providing moments of mythic repose between the pell-mell battle scenes.

Full Review Source: Financial Times | comment Comment
02/22/08
Nigel Andrews
Nigel Andrews
Financial Times

Non-stop violence is too overpowering for kids.

Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | comment Comment
01/24/08
Sandie Angulo Chen
Sandie Angulo Chen
Common Sense Media

Like America, it's both excited by and ashamed of its bloodlust.

Full Review Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) | comment Comment
02/01/08
John Beifuss
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

The lack of irony or humor -- except for the occasional unintended chuckles provoked by certain platitudinal one-liners -- here separates the violence from Tarantino films or graphic novel adaptations that often use their bloodfests to parody or to bemuse

Full Review Source: Spectrum (St. George, Utah) | comment Comment
01/29/08
Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett
Spectrum (St. George, Utah)

It's a middling movie both in terms of the franchise and in terms of action movies in general.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
01/24/08
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

This is Rambo for a new generation--bigger, more violent, and yet somehow a little smarter and nuanced too. It's not high art, but who expects that from a Rambo movie to begin with?

Full Review Source: Mike Bracken's Horror Films | comment Comment
01/24/08
Mike Bracken
Mike Bracken
Mike Bracken's Horror Films

The very brutal violence that opens the film casts a pall over the very movie-fake violence that follows.

Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy | comment Comment
01/28/08
Tim Brayton
Tim Brayton
Antagony & Ecstasy

Talk about mixed movie messages -- I fear the more important part of the movie gets buried in the bloodshed. You could say that Rambo shoots himself in the foot.

Full Review Source: Christianity Today | comment Comment
01/25/08
Russ Breimeier
Russ Breimeier
Christianity Today

At times there is something weirdly comforting about the film's no-frills, fundamentalist zeal.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
02/22/08
Xan Brooks
Xan Brooks
Guardian [UK]

It would probably feel more at home on a cruddy VHS tape with bad tracking problems...

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Weekly | comment Comment
02/06/08
Sean Burns
Sean Burns
Philadelphia Weekly

This is the Schindler's List of B-list butchery.

Full Review Source: Seacoast Newspapers (NH/Maine) | comment Comment
01/26/08
Gina Carbone
Gina Carbone
Seacoast Newspapers (NH/Maine)

Sylvester Stallone may be eating at the 4:30 buffet and paying with his AARP card, but he can still make one hell of an action flick.

Full Review Source: Film School Rejects | comment Comment
01/25/08
Kevin Carr
Kevin Carr
Film School Rejects

the action here is repetitive, derivative, and clunky. Then there's the subtext, which embodies enough jingoistic Imperialism to make Kipling puff up his chest with pride

Full Review Source: Killer Movie Reviews | comment Comment
01/24/08
Andrea Chase
Andrea Chase
Killer Movie Reviews

Straightforward wish fulfillment -- imagine what crimes against humanity we could punish if we had real, indestructible Rambos.

Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | comment Comment
10/01/08
Jeffrey Chen
Jeffrey Chen
Window to the Movies

Rambo delivers big-time and simultaneously gives a big, blood-covered middle finger to all the neutered action movies of late.

Full Review Source: FromTheBalcony | comment Comment
01/27/08
Bill Clark
Bill Clark
FromTheBalcony
 
 
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Latest News for Rambo

September 08, 2009: Stallone Releases Synopsis, First Poster for Rambo 5 Opens in new window
You heard that the fifth "Rambo" was going to pit the titular hero against a drug-dealing slave ring, but as it turns out, Sylvester Stallone's plans for the next sequel are a... More...

August 31, 2009: Fifth Rambo Gets a Green Light Opens in new window
Sylvester Stallone will "fight his way through human traffickers and drug lords to rescue a young girl abducted near the U.S.-Mexico border" in the fifth "Rambo" installment,... More...

January 29, 2009: Stallone Mulling Over Another Rambo Opens in new window
Are you ready for more Rambo? Sylvester Stallone is -- and he's just told Extra that the only thing he needs to do is decide "whether to do it in America or a foreign country." More...

July 28, 2008: RT on DVD: Harold & Kumar, Doomsday and Dark City Director's Cut
Since we're all still recovering from Comic-Con 2008, and tons of new home video details dropped at the Largest Nerd Gathering in the World, it's time for RT on DVD: Geek... More...

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