“300” told a stylized version of the Battle of Thermapolye where 300 Spartans and about a thousand other Hellenic warriors withstood the Persian Empire. While it was a great movie with a mythical feeling to it, there was a lot of potential there for silliness.....
Well, that silliness hit the silverscreen over the weekend with the spoof “Meet the Spartans,” which is a send up of “300” along with several other recent action and adventure blockbusters such as “Spiderman 3’ , “Transformers” and “Rambo” which also arrived in theaters last Friday.
This is a movie in the vein of “Epic Movie” last year’s parody of flicks like “The Chronicles of Narnia” which in its turn spoofed “Superman Returns” and the Harry Potter series.
I guess somebody in Hollywood somewhere decided that if the Wayons Bros. could send up horror films with the “Scary Movie” franchise that action and adventure films would be fair game, which is cool to those of us old enough to remember when the week’s new movies routinely got parodied on the original “Saturday Night Live.”
It’s playing this week at the FountainPlace Cinema 8 for those of you who want to take a break from the grim and gritty adventure films of the summer.
I was really surprised with “Rambo” written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, which opened on Friday.
While the film is a sequel, the tone of the movie is nothing like the cartoony action films of the 80s and early 90s; instead it feels a lot more like a serious war film like “Apocalypse Now.’
“Rambo” is a human drama set against the backdrop of the civil war in Burma between government forces and the Karen rebels. For decades there have been atrocities going on in Burma which much of the rest of the world tended to ignore because British and French forces got oil from the country and the Burmese government spent millions on public relations in the West. Ironically, that all came to a head a few months before “Rambo” was released.
When “Rambo” begins, John Rambo is eking out a living in Thailand as a blacksmith and riverboat captain who picks up extra money by capturing dangerous snakes for a local reptile circus.
A group of Christian missionaries from America approaches him and asks for transportation into Burma where they can provide medical assistance to refugees who have literally lost everything.
Rambo warns the missionaries that unless they are carrying weapons they are not going to change anything there and refuses to take them in for their own safety.
The female missionary (Julie Benz, who played Darla on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”) winds up getting past his gruff exterior and Rambo agrees to take them into Burma. Along the way, they are stopped by river pirates leading to a gunfight. Rambo returns to Thailand and the missionaries begin helping the refugees. Shortly thereafter, they are captured by government forces that slaughter the refugees and take the missionaries into captivity where they are literally brutalized.
The pastor of the American church which sent them to Burma arrives in Thailand and asks Rambo to take a team of mercenaries into the area so they can be brought back out. The pastor arrives at just the right time, for Rambo has been struggling with his conscious and the actions in his past. Rambo decides to go into Burma and bring the missionaries back out, hoping that his brutal skills at jungle warfare will prove to be worth something to someone.
Along the way, Rambo develops a distrust of the leader of the mercenaries a loud mouthed Australian.
When they arrive he hauls out his own out-of-date gear (a 20 year old compound bow and a crude knife forged from a truck spring) declaring he will go along with them. The leader of the mercs rebuffs his offer and sends him packing.
Later, when the mercenaries are pinned down by the Burmese army, a stream of long, black arrows starts dispatching the bad guys.
Rambo and the mercs make their way to the encampment and bring some of the missionaries out, and try to make their way back to the boat. However, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues as Rambo has to lead the trackers on a false trail so the mercs and missionaries will stand a better chance of escaping.
“Rambo” has eschewed the comic book violence of the first three films in that franchise for a brutal look at the horrors of war and man’s inhumanity towards man. It’s not a film for the squeamish, and it shows just how horrible warfare is.
Also still playing is “Cloverfield” which is J.J. Abrams homage to the giant lizard/Godzilla films of the days of yore when a critter the size of a skyscraper would go on a demolition bender.
Cloverfield isn’t a traditional giant monster movie, however. It is told from the viewpoint of a half a dozen young people with a camcorder who are in the city when the Big Reptile Ugliness starts coming down. Because of this, many people have mixed opinions on it, with some viewers loving it and others hating it. You have to make up your own mind. I personally give it credit for being clever and taking a different route than that awful Americanized Godzilla flick from a few years ago with Ferris Bueller and a bunch of computer animated dinobabies.
Check the daily ad in The Logan Banner for showtimes.
Post a Comment
