Count along with Rambo
January 25th, 2008 at 04:03pm Will Pfeifer
Sylvester Stallone’s new Rambo movie (called, imaginatively enough, “Rambo”) has been getting slaughtered by the critics, but that’s no surprise. What’s surprising is just how much slaughtering the movie itself is doing. According to a professor at Ohio State who saw an advance copy, the fourth movie in the “Rambo” series contains a whopping 236 onscreen killings. Given that the movie has a (mercifully) short running time of 93 minutes, that averages out to more than 2.5 deaths per minute, or one death every 24 seconds.
Depending on your reading speed, a couple of “Rambo” badguys bit the bullet (possibly quite literally) while you read that last paragraph. In other words, “Rambo” sounds like perfect family viewing — take the kids and let them count along. It might even sharpen their math skills.
It’s hard to believe that in the first “Rambo” movie, 1982’s remarkably restrained “First Blood,” a mere four characters met their maker, and most of them did so accidentally. It’s even harder to believe that originally, the script had John Rambo die at the end.
Sure, it would’ve been a downer, but just think how many fictional lives would’ve been saved.
Entry Filed under: Violence, New movies
4 Comments Add your own
1. elDizzle | January 25th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
So what happened? I actually liked First Blood and thought it was a decent enough story (based on an average enough book). My first thought was they decided to make Rambo into Commando, but Rambo First Blood Part 2 actually beat Commando to the theaters by a few months….
2. Adam | January 25th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Now that Stallone has made more sequels for Rocky and Rambo I think it is time to reinvigorate his two best films. 1. Over the Top (only the best arm wrestling movie ever) and 2.Stop or My Mom Will Shoot.
3. elDizzle | January 25th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Don’t forget Oscar!
4. Will Pfeifer | January 25th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
ElDizzle — I’m not sure what happened, aside from the usual problem with sequels, i.e., they almost always end up bigger, dumber and a whole lot worse than the movie preceding them. FIRST BLOOD isn’t a great movie, but it’s a well-done piece of suspense with some great action and genuine tension. RAMBO 2 is a cartoon. I remember walking out of it as a high schooler and even then I knew it was stupid. I’d say it’s worse than COMMANDO — at least COMMANDO has a sense of humor. RAMBO 2 is so damned serious!
Adam — But what about RHINESTONE?
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed