Rambo: First Blood Part II 1985

After the ingenious first installment "First Blood" of the Rambo series that in retrospect got a 10/10 from me, the second movie named "Rambo: First Blood Part II" can - in my opinion - in no way live up to its predecessor.

This starts with the premises that Rambo - a PTSD Vietnam veteran, who is imprisoned in a labor camp for his psychotic breakdown in part one - is send back to Vietnam (rather then sending him to a mental facility where he could learn to cope with his mental traumas)! And Rambo, of course, agrees to. Because yes, after the heart-felt monologue at the end of the first movie where under tears he describes explicit detail how he tried to scrap together his best friend who stepped on a mine, or how he was tortured by the enemy, this is exactly what you would do. As the tagline reads: "What others call hell, he calls home".

But okey, let's not argue on how well part 2 fits to part 1, let's take a look at it like a solo movie, because after all, except for the character names and their backstories part 2 really does not build upon part 1 at all - it seems like they did not care and wanted to do another kind of movie, so let's treat it as such.

Rambo is released early from prison because he is an expert stealth guerilla war human killer machine, and he is set back to Vietnam, to look at prison camps and - if he should find PoWs he is not to free them, but only take pictures and return. Makes sense to fly all the way to the US, do all the paperwork and go through all the suffering to get out an war expert, who is known to snap, just to have him take pictures... this get's especially weird as at the end it is revealed that all of this is actually a conspiracy and Rambo shouldn't have even seen any prisoners - anybody could have just taken pictures from the camp - they could have been totally staged - why go through the hassle to take a war veteran that is not even in on the plan, so that this plan is risked to be revealed?... but hey. Why not? Let's keep an open mind!

Rambo meets up with his contact, a girl named Co, who actually is just a tag along female hottie, probably to lure in young male viewers. She has hardly any relevance to the story what so ever, there is zero chemistry between the two actors, even though actress Julia Nixon puts her absolute best into acting as she fell in love at first sight. Still there is a romantic part and a dramatic turn of events that is so unbelievable - but I'll get to this later. With the help of her, he gets to a camp, does not obey his orders, but starts shooting everything down, and by this act gets both, the Vietnamese army as well as the Russian army on his tail...

If the plot itself isn't bad already, it gets really bad, when it comes to the action: With no regards on anything, Rambo gets to Vietnam and shoots up everything, using machine guns, bazookas, grenades, etc. to blow up straw huts. No settlety, no stealth, no intelligence that you would believe a green beret to have. There is however, a part that actually is pretty cool towards the end, where he gears up once more and kills his pursuers one by one, actually using guerilla warfare techniques (sneaking and hiding). Those are really fun to watch, but a small portion just before the end of the movie, and up till then the action is in general overdone and gets boring fast. And that's really sad because Part 1 had absolutely stunning and captivating action, that was so much more fun.

As already mentioned the plot isn't that good either: We know exactly from the beginning who the bad guy is, and as if that's not enough, there are not only a number of plot holes but also simply stupid mistakes. Our project leader seems to be a civilian, or at least he dresses as one, but has the rank of major, and operates form an army base but not with an actual army but mostly mercenaries. Still, in the movie he outranks the Colonel, who simply follows his orders even if he doesn't like them and even if they are straight immoral and criminal - there is nothing cool or interesting about Trautman at all anymore. And then there is the end: I mean, really? WTF! It was a conspiracy? The American major ordered the camp to be empty, so that they could fly in Rambo who would take pictures from one empty camp and that would have been proof that there are no PoWs in all of Vietnam? But by accident the stupid Vietnamese who rotate the prison camps put the prisoners into the camp anyways so that the one date that it was important this camp was empty it wasn't? Which is why they get in the Russians to kill Rambo so he cannot tell what he saw? Well...

The message is all to clear: The bad guys are the people wearing suits, who send the soldiers to Vietnam, then make them loose, by discarding them, and in the end it's all about PR. The US are the good guys, the Russians are the war hungry bad guys, and the Vietnamese are wild animals that are easy to kill... oh yeah, speaking of that: I also feel that the movie is rather stereotypical and in that sense a tad racist. Be it the so overdone and downright stupid fake accent of Julia Nixon, who has Asian roots but a native British father, is US-citizen and speaks perfect English, or the way this movie depicts the Vietnamese people (even the tagline does it by calling Vietnam "hell"), as well as the Russians. That alone wouldn't bother me to much - I mean, hey. It was the 80s, standards where different. But it adds up to all the other things I did not like about this movie.

And to close - we again get a kind of "nervous breakdown" monologue at the end, but while the monologue in the first movie comes unexpected, is ingeniously acted and makes you hold your breath, give you goosebumps and/or wet eye, this one will make you either laugh or yawn. Boy was that a bad attempt of tie this movie on to the first one. A really bad knockoff.

It really is a shame. I would have wanted to love this movie so much more. But 4/10 is the best I can do, honoring a) the few good scenes and b) the influence this movie had on pop culture. But I've rather seen Rambo III following into the footsteps of First Blood.

The title "First Blood Part II" is kind of stupid. So it's a good thing that the second Rambo film is also significantly less challenging than its predecessor. Here, the PTSD-stricken and socially disregarded ex-soldier becomes the one-man army the character is known for today.

At the beginning of the film, John Rambo is still in a prison after the events of the first one. But it just takes a couple of minutes until Richard Crenna's Colonel Trautman gets him out of there. The plot then quickly shifts to Vietnam, where apparently there are still some US prisoners of war trapped years after the end of the conflict. Rambo, who escaped from a POW camp while he was still active, is sent to investigate. Marshall Murdock (Charles Napier), a greasy bureaucrat, is in command of the mission. Martin Kove, known from the Karate Kid series, also appears.

And already in this introduction, it becomes clear that a black and white picture of the world is being drawn. The good guys are the soldiers who actually risk their lives in action. The bad guys, on the other hand, are faceless politicians, as well as bureaucrats and foreigners. In contrast to the first film, Rambo kills numerous opponents who remain nameless. You don't get to know their motivations and backgrounds.

That all sounds quite negative, but of course, there are also very good sides to "Rambo II". The action is great across the board. This is a real blockbuster. One explosion chases the next—and everything looks spectacular. This is accompanied by Jerry Goldsmith's driving score. You definitely won't be bored. When the film comes to its admittedly expected end, you are probably already looking forward to the next one.