Rambo. A name synonymous with non-stop over the top action, lunkheaded one-liners, and sweaty, dirty headbands. A moving and tense novel by David Morrell was turned into an equally moving and tense motion picture that set into play the seeds for one of the most deliriously over the top action hero franchises of the 1980s - a decade known for over the top action hero franchises. The original spawned two sequels, which in turn inspired a cartoon series, a Commodore 64 video game, comic books, a toy line, and started a combat knife craze that I'm sure got many a young man in trouble with his parents. Lionsgate has released the four Rambo films on Blu-ray before, but now repackages them in one handy collector's edition. If you've got the previous releases, there's nothing new here at all, you can safely move on. While Lionsgate has dubbed this release Rambo: The Complete Collector's Set, it puzzlingly does not include the extended cut of the fourth film, available only as a single disc release. I guess calling it Rambo: The Incomplete Collector's Set would have been a bad business move, but regardless, this set contains only the theatrical edition of that most recent film.

Rambo - First Blood:

Set amongst the beauty of the Pacific Northwestern United States, a transient named John Rambo searches out the surviving members of his former Vietnam unit, only to find that they are all dead. While Rambo may have earned a Medal of Honor in The 'Nam, he's now looked down upon by the local police (represented here by Brian Dennehy as Sheriff Teasle) who attempt to run him out of town but end up throwing him in jail. After suffering some abuse at the hands of the fuzz (which causes him to have a flashback), Rambo makes a daring escape and grabs a dirt bike to get the Hell out of town.

Sheriff Teasle and his men chase after him, and one of the cops tries to shoot Rambo down. Rambo responds in kind, and in defending himself inadvertently takes the officer's life. Teasle shoots Rambo once, but it isn't enough and he's off into the woods. Rambo's former commanding officer, Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna), shows up on the scene to try and talk Teasle out of bringing Rambo back dead, but Teasle is out for blood and wants nothing more than Rambo's head. The National Guard are called in to help take him down, but will even their might prove to be enough to stop one of the country's finest trained killing machines?

Rambo - First Blood is a fine film. It's played perfectly straight and is a tense action thriller that makes great use of the forest and small town setting, allowing its central characters a great environment in which to chase each other around. Say what you will about the direction that Stallone's career has taken but he's great here in the title role and does a fine job as the tall, dark and silent misunderstood man who finds himself in a whole heap of trouble in spite of himself. Brian Dennehy is perfectly easy to hate as the Sheriff, which makes him a great choice for the part, and Richard Crenna brings a level headed coolness to Col. Trautman that balances out the protagonist and antagonist quite nicely.

While on top the film may seem like just another action movie, below the surface it does have a heart, playing Rambo as a rather sympathetic character who is paying the price for having the guts to serve his country in an unappreciated war. His flashbacks may make him mentally unstable in a sense, but it's because of his patriotism and his love of his country that he has them in the first place, and it's now that very same country chasing him through the forests of Washington State trying to kill him for something that he isn't wholly responsible for. It makes for an interesting paradox, and ranks this film up as a considerably more intelligent film than its two mindless, though very entertaining, sequels. Speaking of which...

Rambo - First Blood Part II:

Throwing all the seriousness of the first film out the window, Rambo - First Blood Part II finds out buddy John busted out of prison by his old pal, Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna again). Why on Earth would a respect military official bust a cop-killing veteran out of prison? Why, because the government needs his help again, this time for a top secret mission to bring back a handful of POWs that are still being held captive in the jungles of Vietnam, that's why.

The government wants Rambo to do nothing but take pictures of the location where the POWs have been locked up, but Rambo takes this mission a little more personally than he probably should and once he lands in the thick of it, old habits come roaring back fast and you just know he has to spring them - his conscience wouldn't let him do otherwise. He soon meets up with a gorgeous Vietnamese rebel named Co Bao (Julia Nickson who fought alongside the mighty Chuck Norris in Sidekicks) and the two freedom fighters set off to save the unfortunate prisoners of war from the evil Vietnamese Captain Vinh (William Ghent). Once Rambo starts poking around, he finds that Vinh is working alongside Lieutenant Colonel Padovsky (Steven Berkoff) and it seems that the Russians are in on all of this!

Soon, Rambo starts to fall in love with Co Bao, which inevitably leads to her being killed by Captain Vinh. Now Rambo has two missions - he not only intends to avenge his lovers death, but he needs to free the POWs as well and he goes on a one man rampage through the jungles of Vietnam, laying waste to every Russian and Vietnamese soldier in his path. But what Rambo doesn't know is there is more to this than first meets the eye, and there just might be some involvement from a third party that he doesn't know about just yet.

There's really no way to realistically defend this film - in a sense it trivializes the war that so many people died for, and at the same time it portrays the Vietnamese in such a stereotypical way that it borders on racist (just listen to Co Bao's dialogue!). That being said, it's insanely entertaining. The action scenes are way too over the top to be even anything remotely resembling realistic, and the character of Rambo in this film is far more of a superhero than he is an 'everyman.' Stallone gets into the role as best he can, howling his way through the final rampage with his jowl to the side and his eyes ablaze, while Crenna once again brings a sense of calm to the film that it very desperately needs.

It's hard to take it seriously, it's hard to justify or defend, but it isn't hard at all to enjoy if you're able to turn your brain off for ninety minutes and watch stuff blow up. Something I am personally quite capable of. Considering the huge box office this film did on its release, obviously I'm not the only one.

Rambo III:

The final film in the Rambo Trilogy fines Colonel Samuel Trautman (Crenna again) with the unfortunate task of leading a secret mission into the remote deserts of Afghanistan. Here he and his team will aid the Mujahedeen rebels in their quest to overthrow the Soviets currently controlling their country. Trautman asks Rambo to help him out on this one, but Rambo declines, as it contradicts his new found Buddhist beliefs.

So, Trautman heads off to Afghanistan with his motley crew looking for trouble. As anyone could have guess, the mission quickly goes horribly wrong and Colonel Trautman finds himself kidnapped by Colonel Zaysen (Marc De Jonge), an evil Russian despot.

Of course, once John Rambo hears that his pal is in the clutches of a Russian Communist maniac, he takes it upon himself to wage a one man rescue mission and free his friend and return him safely to American soil. He trucks off to Afghanistan and meets up with the Mujahedeenians, who he convinces to help him in his quest. They agree, and soon it's all out war.

Rambo III starts off well enough. It sets up the story simply and matter of factly but the idea of sending Trautman in without Rambo shows that he is his own character and that there is a military outside of Rambo and his world. Current events haven't aged the film particularly well, but you can't fault the writers for that as they had no way of looking into the future and knowing how things would shape up in this post 9/11 world we all call home. What you can fault them for is putting Rambo and his rebel amigos up against some of the most ridiculous situations imaginable, and that's exactly what they're responsible of in this, the third and silliest of the three films.

Once Rambo is set loose to rescue Trautman, the films ends up more or less a retread of the same territory covered in the second film. Trautman may as well be interchangeable with the POW's Rambo saved previously and there isn't really anything interesting done with the situation or the two leads aside from the standard 'blow stuff up shoot Commies' formula that we'd all seen by this point in time. Like the second film though, if you're able to turn off your brain and enjoy the brainless action film for what it is, Rambo III is a decent time killer, even if it is far from a classic in any sense.

Rambo:

The forth film in the ongoing saga of John Rambo, simply titled Rambo, successfully accomplishes the near impossible task of revitalizing a franchise that had, to be blunt, become a bit of a joke. While the first entry in the series, First Blood, was a nice blend of action, suspense and drama but the second and third entries were more than just a little bit silly, even if they were a fun time at the movie. Following the success of Rocky Balboa (which also successfully brought back a clichéd character), Stallone's wound up standing as one of the best action films of the last ten years.

When the picture begins, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is living the life of a recluse in Thailand where he makes a meager living catching and selling snakes and by bringing people up and down the nearby river in his antiquated wooden boat. Rambo enjoys the quiet life and minds his own business but when a group of American Christian missionaries, lead by Michael Burnett (Paul Schulze of The Sopranos), attempt to hire him to bring them upriver into war-torn Burma, he's eventually persuaded thanks to the sincerity of one of the missionaries, Sarah Miller (Julie Benz of TV's Angel).

After taking down a boatload of Burmese pirates, Rambo successfully drops the crew off in Burma and is told that they'll be leaving by ground and that his services are no longer needed. He heads back home but is soon notified by an American minister (Ken Howard) affiliated with the group that they've been abducted by a Major Tint (Maung Maung Khin). He persuades Rambo to bring a group of mercenaries to the spot where he last saw the missionaries so that they can bring them out of Burma alive. While the mercenaries, lead by a surly Englishman named Lewis (Graham McTavish), don't want Rambo's help, they soon find that they have no choice in the matter and he finds himself drawn back in to the life he thought he'd finally left behind.

Lean, mean, and astonishingly violent, Rambo builds to one of the most gratuitously blood soaked conclusions seen in a mainstream motion picture in a long, long time. Heads are blown off, torsos explore, throats are ripped out, landmines fling body parts into the air and machine guns turn men into goo and it's honestly surprising that this film passed with an R-rating. That said, there's more to Rambo than just carnage. The picture builds with a palpable intensity and it's interesting to see Stallone's character reluctantly work his way back into his former self and face the life he tried to leave behind head on. The picture also attempts to make some sort of social commentary by shedding some light on the realities of life in Burma, a country that's been suffering the effects of war for decades.

Stallone, who directed and co-wrote the film with Art Monterastelli, is as cold as ice as the man of few words who decides to die for something rather than live for nothing and he brings a delicious sense of menace to the part that has been lacking in past entries. Rambo is scary here, he's a powder keg waiting to explode and explode he does once the action moves to the internment camp where the missionaries are being held. The supporting cast members are all fine in their parts, but this really is Stallone's show all the way through and the cinematography really plays up his sour face and burly features. The film also takes a more realistic approach to war this time around, with Rambo working with a team rather than as the one man wrecking crew he'd become by the time that Rambo III hit theaters. This gives us a more believable film that uses violence as a ways of delivering its message rather than as the message itself. The end result is an interesting, tense, exciting and fairly bleak action film that doesn't let up and hits all the right notes.

Video:

The first three films in the set are all presented in 2.35.1 1080p high definition anamorphic widescreen and generally the transfers are pretty good. They do show their age in spots and so don't quite have the clarity of pop that more modern action films might have on Blu-ray, but they certainly offer significantly increased detail and color reproduction when compared to their standard definition counterparts. The first film looks fairly bright in the daytime scenes that take place outdoors and becomes increasingly dark as the film's tone shifts. The transfer replicates this well, from the scenes that take place in the woods to the shots that were done inside the cave. Detail is generally quite strong and skin tones lifelike and fairly natural. Print damage is surprisingly faint, and grain is never overabundant. The second film looks a little bit softer than the first one but still holds up well for a movie made roughly twenty-five years ago. Some filtering employed in the camera work seems to suck out a bit of fine detail but the picture looked like this one standard definition as well, so it's likely inherent in the cinematographer rather than a transfer flaw. Colors look good here, particularly once the action moves to the jungle, while black levels and shadow detail are strong. Skin tones are good, despite the aforementioned softness evident in some spots, and generally speaking this is a pretty strong effort. Rambo III is on par, visually speaking, with the first two films in the series in that it shows pretty decent detail and is an obvious improvement over the standard definition release. Again, colors are pretty nice looking, appearing realistic and not over saturated or blown out. The Afghani locations show fairly impressive background detail in spots while black levels remain pretty consistent. Overall, for a trio of slightly older action movies, the first three films in the series look just fine on Blu-ray. They may not be demo material, but the picture quality here is solid.

Lionsgate presents Rambo on Blu-ray in a nice 2.35.1 1080p AVC anamorphic widescreen transfer that does a very nice job of replicating how the film looked in theaters earlier this year, meaning that the colors are intentionally bleached a bit and that the picture is constantly gritty looking. That's how the film looked on the big screen, and that's just how it looks on Blu-ray as well. This results in some detail loss where the image should otherwise be crisp and sharp. That said, the transfer is quite well done and there's certainly no shortage of little details to pick out, particularly in facial close-ups and tighter interior shots. Color reproduction is solid (though again, flatter than you might expect) with whites and lighter colors looking hot. There aren't any problems with compression artifacts nor are there any issues with heavy edge enhancement or shimmering effects. Grain is moderate in some spots, intentionally so, but there isn't any actual print damage to complain about. The greens and browns of the jungle look nice and accurate though black levels could have been a touch inkier, at times showing a blue tint. The reds, important during the carnage of the last half hour of the movie, are nice and bright without looking oversaturated and there's more detail during the various gore scenes than was evident during the theatrical presentation this reviewer attended. This may not be a reference quality Blu-ray transfer, but it absolutely looks as good as it needs to, maybe even a little better.