Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) Review

"Murdock, I'm coming for you!"
-John Rambo



John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) has been in prison since the end of the first movie.  His old commanding officer, Colonel Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna), approaches him with a mission to get out of prison.  Rambo is sent on a scouting mission in Vietnam to see if there are still American P.O.W.'s.  Rambo parachutes into the jungle, but finds far more danger than he could have expected.


What Works:

Far and away the best part of the movie is the action.  They do not hold back on the action sequences.  They are extremely over-the-top and a lot of fun.  

In the original First Blood, I said the first half of the movie was stronger than the second half due to it being one long chase sequence.  The reverse is true here.  The second half of this movie is one long chase sequence after Rambo escapes captivity.  It's a thrilling-ride with something exciting happening every second.  The first half has problems, but the second half more than makes up for it with some incredible pacing.

There is also some really cool cinematography.  Most of it is pretty standard stuff, but there are some really incredible shots sprinkled in.  The best is when Rambo and Banks (Andy Wood) are abandoned by their extraction team and left on a hill to be captured by the Vietnamese soldiers.  It's an incredible shot and I can't stop thinking about it.

Finally, Murdock (Charles Napier) is an excellent villain and utterly despicable.  He's so easy to hate and I got chills when Rambo said he was coming for Murdock.  You need a great villain in movies like this and Murdock fits the bill.


What Sucks:

Rambo himself doesn't get much to do in terms of acting or character development.  He went through his journey in the first movie.  He's just a generic action-hero this time around and that's disappointing.

Rambo's love interest, Co-Bao (Julia Nickson) isn't very good either.  The character only speaks broken English, but it's easy to tell that Nickson speaks fluent English and struggles trying to pretend otherwise.  Her scenes with dialogue never really work.

Finally, the other villain, Lt. Colonel Podovsky (Steven Berkoff), is pretty generic and there isn't anything special about him.  Berkoff played an extremely similar character in Octopussy, but that character had much more interesting characterizations.  He feels underused here.


Verdict:

While not as good as the first movie, Rambo: First Blood Part 2 is a fun movie with excellent action, a fun second half, a great villain, and cool cinematography.  There isn't much in the way of acting and some of the characters are underused, but I would say this movie has got it going on.

 7/10: Good 

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