Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

Tagline: What most people call hell, he calls home.

Curiosity: I want to see First Blood, only this time with more death and explosions and idiocy.

Plot: Set three years after the events of First Blood, Colonel Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) visits John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) in prison and asks if he’d be willing to go out on a top secret assignment. The mission: Find American POWs in Vietnam. Rambo, being a fine lover of veterans’ rights, accepts. Under the command of Marshal Murdock (Charles Napier), Rambo is dropped back into ’Nam, where he meets up with his new partner, Co (Julia Nickson), and searches a prison for survivors. Things get ugly when A) He actually does find G.I.s and B) It turns out he wasn’t supposed to.

Thoughts: Rambo: First Blood Part II is the well-meaning but really stupid brother to First Blood. Everything about this movie is big and dumb, from the explosions to the weapons to the body count to Rambo’s big speech at the end, which is about half as effective and twice as corny as the one from the original movie. Whereas First Blood felt like an examination of PTSD, Part II is an absurd tribute to America and racism. It’s exploitive and, given that the USSR was ready to fall over, silly in retrospect.

Which is why, at a certain point, you just have to roll with the film, even if it means ignoring how ridiculous Co’s speech pattern sounds or half-baked the government conspiracy turns out to be or how the bad guys never, ever hit Rambo. The film has a handful of cool shots and a sweet smattering of action spread throughout. It’s a homoerotic thriller about one guy killing a poop-ton of bad guys. And I can’t think of anything more American than that.

Reflection: John Cameron co-wrote the script for this big action sequel to a more somber, claustrophobic film, a trick he would repeat in 1986 with Aliens.