Movie Review - Rambo: First Blood Part II

Not as good as the original. The summary pretty much sums it all up. This is nowhere near as good as the original. With a script co-written by both Stallone and James Cameron (at the same time he was also writing Aliens). Most of the action was written by Cameron and the political aspects were written by Stallone. Sly was in the best condition physically as he was making this and Rocky 4 and he does look in great shape or jacked up to the eyeballs on steroids, depending on your own viewpoint or opinion.

Rambo starts off in prison and is visited by Colonel Trautman who asks him to go on a special mission that could earn him a Presidential pardon. He eventually agrees and goes off to the briefing camp run by Charles Napier playing a Washington suit trying to pass himself off as former ex-forces to placate Rambo. The mission is to find out if there are any missing POWs still alive in camps in Vietnam. Rambo was chosen as the camp he was checking was somewhere he had previously been a prisoner himself. He is told it's not a rescue mission and he is there to take recon photos only.

After a bad attempt at parachuting from a plane he loses most of his kit, meets his contact (who turns out to be a cute woman) and travels down river with pirates to the camp. He finds there are still prisoners and rescues one. As the 3 flee from half the Vietnamese Army on their river boat they are betrayed by the pirates but Rambo kills them all and they are forced to carry on to the pick-up point on foot after their boat is rammed and blown up with Rambo almost on board.

Rambo is betrayed again and abandoned as Napier orders the recall of the rescue helicopter. It is clear as Trautman returns to base to berate him that no survivors were expected to be found.
Steven Berkoff turns up as a Russian Spetznatz Colonel and Rambo is tortured and eventually escapes only to be pursued by more Vietnamese troops and Spetznatz. Killing many of them, Rambo finally steals a chopper and rescues most of the prisoners to return to his base. He resists the urge to kill Napier for abandoning him but destroys the Ops Centre. A weak plot and very weak ending as Rambo walks off into the sunset as a free man.