Monstervision's Joe Bob Looks At

Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985

After wasting half of Colorado in the movie First Blood to prove what a patriotic American he was, Sly Stallone gets the authorities to let him out of jail so he can go over to Nam, parachute down to the bamboo prisons where they're keeping 47,000 American prisoners that weren't already rescued by Charles Bronson or Chuck Norris or in Uncommon Valor, fall in love with a Viet Bimbo, kung fu some Russians, suffer through the dreaded Oriental electric-bedspring torture, lose his shirt, and say stuff like, "I always thought the best weapon was the mind." And "To survive war, you gotta BECOME war!"
Since the future of western democracy now depends on Rocky's MIND, it's fortunate that he brought along A FEW SIMPLE WEAPONS. Carefully concealed in his boots are eight AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles with laser scopes and hundred-round ammo clips. Behind his belt are hidden 943 daggers, throwing stars, exploding bronze-tipped arrows, and a knife the size of Mongolia. Rambo doesn't NEED any of this stuff, of course. All he needs is a bow and arrow to turn the Cong into buffalo meat. Since all the GIs bail out on him and leave him hanging out there like a piece of limp sausage to die, Rambo ends up fighting the Viet Commies, the Russian Commies, AND the Washington Commies.
Thank God he knows how to hot-wire a military chopper to get our boys out of there.
77 dead bodies.
Three quarts blood.
Two exploding boats.
Eighteen exploding bamboo huts.
One exploding village.
One exploding Russian gunship.
One exploding Russian.
Two motor vehicle chases.
"Story of O" yucky mud torture.
One exploding rice paddy.
Kung Fu.
Snake Fu.
Bazooka Fu.
Bow-and-arrow Fu.
With Julia Nickson, who slants her eyes to become a Viet bimbo and says "Maybe go America? Live quiet life?"
and Richard Crenna, still hanging around from the first movie.
The ultimate in Exploding Bamboo.  
I give it 4 stars

Rambo III (1988)

Rambo kicks hiney in Afghanistan

(From Joe Bob's Ultimate B Movie Guide)


Sly Stallone goes to Afghanistan and explodes enough goat-herders to make up for all the camel-jockeys Russia FORGOT to blow up. Sly spent 50 mill on this baby, resulting in the finest Rambo movie since RAMBO II.  Wall-to-wall body grease. First Sly communes with nature and gets in touch with his spiritual being at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand where he can be One with the One, except when he earns a few extra bucks knocking gorilla Sumo wrestlers over the head with huge Thai death sticks for a blood-thirsty crowd of gamblers. But Dick Crenna shows up and tries to get him to go to Afghanistan and teach guys named Mahmoud to shoot shoulder- mounted Stinger missiles while riding on double-hump camels. Sly says "Colonel, I'm sorry, but it's gotta end for me sometime."

Two scenes later Crenna's hiney gets slapped in a Russkie fortress in the middle of the desert, and one scene after that Sly is showing up in downtown Peshawar, asking to speak to some guy in a burnoose with too many vowels in his name, and purchasing approximately $17 million worth of explosive devices to rescue him. Then somebody finally pushes Rambo just ONE STEP too far. They mention Brigitte's name.
Buddha is NOT gonna like the result:
119 dead bodies.
Two breasts (both Rambo's).
Four exploding choppers.
Exploding jeeps.
Exploding trucks.
Exploding tanks.
Exploding Russian.
Chopper crash.
Electric chair torture.
Gratuitous artificial limbs.
Gratuitous dead-sheep pony polo.
Russian Assault Copter Fu.
Thai death stick Fu.
Sewer Fu.
Crenna has the most famous line: "I hope God will have mercy. HE won't."
Sly's best line: "I'm no tourist."
With Marc de Jonge as the evil Russkie colonel who carries out the horrible wrist-hanging torture,
Sasson Gabai as Mousa the friendly goat-herding mujahedeen Ayrab warrior.
I give it 4 stars

© 2000 Joe Bob Briggs. All Rights Reserved. Not an AOL Time-Warner Company in this lifetime.

For this and other movie reviews by the artist formerly known as the host of MonsterVision, go to
Joe Bob Briggs.com

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