Rambo

Vantage Point

Indiana Jones:
Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull.

Horton Hears A Who?

Rambo:
I thought Fatal Move [夺帅] was bloody, and I was wrong. This is even worse, and even Saving Private Ryan pales in comparison. But where Saving Private Ryan is realistic, Rambo is definitely exaggerating. If you loved mindless violence, and seeing people getting ripped apart in 101 means, this is definitely the show for you. In fact, the last 10 minutes has endless scenes of mutilation: flying body parts, many heads and limps getting blown off et al. Definitely a movie you want to avoid after a meal if you have a weak stomach.

Anyway, this time round the mission takes Rambo to Burma (Myanmar), where he (on the trail of a group of mercenaries) rush to the rescue a group of missionaries who has run into some ‘domestic trouble’ with the Myanmese military in the Karen tribal areas. I wondered whether it was watching this (and Stealth), that caused the junta to be have such an irrational fear of Americans.

By the way, I don’t even know if the movie has a point at all. Most of the missionaries who were doing some good with their humanitarian efforts to bring health care and some simple education to the Karen people all met with a terrible end. The only message I got was from the fact that most of the mercenaries died except for the one who came back for Rambo and ‘finished the mission’… perhaps a subtle reminder to the American people they should stay the course in Iraq or face a terrible end?

I definitely hope Stallone won’t make another Rambo because it is going to be quite a joke seeing how this man continually kick his enemies’ ass. In fact, Rocky Balboa was done way better than Rambo. At least it Rocky didn’t beat the young champion, and it showed that even older people can have a determination to do what they intend to do.

Vantage Point:
I got quite bored and annoyed with the start of the movie, where the scene of the American President getting shot was repeated three times from several different perspectives – vantage points. I was wondering if that is going to be the way in the whole show and if blogger Mr.Malique was kidding me when he said this is a good movie.

I was glad I didn’t write it off from there because the storyline began to unravel after that, and that’s where it tied in the three vantage points to reveal to the audience what was missing in one but present in the other to allow Agent Barnes (Dennis Quaid) to be hot on the trail on the conspirators to rescue the President. There wasn’t very much of Sigourney Weaver in the movie, as she was seen only in the earlier part of the movie. As for what is Forest Whitaker’s role in the movie, you have to find out for yourself. Of course it comes with the usual intrigue, car chases and gun fights though probably not as exciting or super-human as a James Bond or XXX movie.

All in all, I liked this movie, it was refrenshing to me simply because I don’t recall ever watching another movie made similarly. If you have missed it I do suggest you get the DVD.

Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:
It appears to me that it is the general sentiment that this movie was made a little to long (19 years!) after the last one, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). (It beats the record held by Star Wars, which was 16 years.)

Anyway, since it was such a long time after the last movie, the villians of the movie are no longer the Nazis, but the Soviets. (I wonder if another 20 years later whether it might be Communist China, since now they already have a Chinese Mummy – Jet Li.) The movie started with Dr. Jones (Harrison Ford) captured by a Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) and is forced to assist her in recovering a crate in a Hangar 51. It ultimately led Jones on a competition against Spalko in a race to find the Crystal Skull and lost Akator – also know as El Dorado.