Rambo: Extended Cut – Blu-ray Review

The Film:

Even with the success in Rocky Balboa, a film that concluded perfectly the Rocky franchise and the character, many had a little trepidation about a new Rambo film. The third film fits nicely into the standards of the late 80s/early 90s action film conventions, but politically, it’s very dated. The saving of the Afghans in the film seems like a gigantic ‘oops’ considering the recent years and our conflict in the Middle East. So with that as a backdrop, what would the fourth-and long awaited-Rambo film be like politically? It’s a question that needed to be addressed, since Rambo as a character was born out of political backlash to the Vietnam War.

Stallone takes us mentality away in Rambo to Burma with the conflict that’s happening there, a smart move, since it needed attention and serves as an escape from the Bush War in Iraq and on terror for us audiences.

The results are interesting on a few angles, notably the duality between who Rambo is and the counterpoint to the Christian Missionaries. By bringing help and supplies, along with the good word from the Lord, the missionaries’ assignment is innocent and fundamentally good. But when it’s up against the absolute brutality of the Burmese army, it’s no match. Before good can happen, war against each other is inevitable, a painfully realization of that can be seen in Julie Benz’s character’s eyes at the end of the film. Rambo knows their intent is good, but in order to spread the message, sadly, you must match their war mentality with your own, and with that, the politics stop and Rambo shows modern action films how it is done.

By no means perfect, it’s a trip to see the evolution of the Rambo character in these four films. He was conditioned to be an ultimate bad-ass for Vietnam, yet when he came home in First Blood, he found life in the States even more hellish as how we treated many troops during the return to us. From there, the following two sequels eclipsed the prior standards of an action hero and gave us the Rambo we now know from pop culture. Here, in Rambo, the character has evolved into an action version of Jason Voorhees: kills, kills, and cannot be killed. It’s not quite the send-off Rocky had and that maybe we wanted for the John Rambo character, but the film is pure violent fun.

With The Expendables now in theaters, Lionsgate Films allowed Stallone to go back and flesh out some scenes for this new extended cut. First of all, the title is changed to John Rambo, but don’t expect more action. Instead we get plenty of dialogue exchanges between Rambo and Sarah, that fleshes out more what I was talking about in the second paragraph. How pivotal are these scenes? Not very. But it slightly adds more to the political nature of the film and the themes of war that in the original theatrical cut, kind of gets lost amidst the decapitations and violence.

The Blu-Ray:

Audio/Video: LGF releases this on a stellar Blu-ray. The new footage is seamlessly incorporated in the film, as the colors, details, and clarity remain high, just like the 2008 Blu-ray release.  The night scenes seems a little dark and grainy, but it’s very minor, and doesn’t hurt this superb transfer. Speaking of superb, just listen to the 7.1 DTS track. Need I tell you about the big, loud sound stage or the deep bass for you to enjoy? No, just listen.

Outside of some trailers promoting The Expendables and LGF Blu-ray films of relation to that film, the main extra is a wonderful 85 minute documentary, that mixes real behind-the-scenes footage, with a commentary by Stallone on the 42-Day shoot, called To Hell and Back. He’s quite candid as a commentator about the grueling production and the footage makes you feel as if you’re there, instead of some glossy clips and interviews type of doc. It’s worth the purchase alone.

Conclusion: While the new footage just slightly adds to the final film, the additions offer an interesting, yet subtle look at the characters and themes. But the disc shines from a stellar LGF release, along with the great documentary. The footage won’t make you re-buy the film, but the doc will.

The Film: Rating:

The Blu-ray: Rating: