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Dom Robinson reviews
Momentum Pictures
- Cert:
- Cat.no: MP005D
- Running time: 97 minutes
- Year: 1988
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 16 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby ProLogic)
- Languages: English, Italian, German, Spanish
- Subtitles: 6 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (J-D-C Scope)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99 (or £49.99 for the trilogy boxset)
- Extras: Theatrical Trailer, Teaser, Making Of, Behind the scenes,Photo Gallery
Director:
- Peter MacDonald
(Rambo III)
Producer:
- Buzz Feitshans
Screenplay:
- Sylvester Stallone and Sheldon Lettich
Music:
- Jerry Goldsmith
Cast:
- John Rambo: Sylvester Stallone
Colonel Samuel Trautman: Richard Crenna
Col Zaysen: Marc de Jonge
Griggs: Kurtwood Smith
Masoud: Spiros Focás
Mousa: Sasson Gabai
Hamid: Doudi Shoua
Kourov: Randy Raney
Tomask: Marcus Gilbert
“We’re trying to make this as realistic as possible”,states Sylvester Stallone in the supplemental material, but that’s notwhat I thought when I first saw this at the cinema as a few gunshots or anexplosive-tipped arrow causes the imminent destruction of a heavily-armedchopper, the latter of which caused immense hilarity because the pilotscreams out loud when he spots our hero – as if (!)
Back to reality though and as the summer of 1988 approached I made a bit ofa hash of my GCSEs (well, we were the first ever year to do them and the wholething was incredibly badly planned!) and my father took me to the cinema forsome mindless escapism. Yes, I was only 16 when I saw an 18-certificate film,so sue me 🙂
While, as the trailer explains, the first mission was for himself and the secondwas for his country, this time round it’s for his friend. The idea is thathe and Trautman (Richard Crenna) must go into Afghanistan to stopthe slaughter of innocent civilians. All the regions have imported Stingermissiles to impede air strikes against themselves, bar one. A mad Soviethas defended his territory so far, but for how long? The government wantthe pair to go in and sort it out. Rambo refuses.
However, Trautman gets taken hostage, while the powers that be,fronted by Griggs (Kurtwood Smith,Robocop‘sClarence Bodicker) couldn’t give a toss, so Rambo must be tempted out his new Buddhist life (yeah, right!) and help him.
“I’d like people to be entertained”, says Stallone. He easilyachieved that.
Expect the same from the picture. It looks damn good with just some printscratches occasionally.The average bitrate is 6.5Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.
The surround sound is loud and proud once again. When the shit hits the fan,your speakers are given a fine workout.
Extras :
There’s not as much here as on the second disc, but we begin with a60-second Teaser and a two-minute Theatrical Trailer, bothcropped to non-anamorphic 16:9 fullscreen.
A six-minute Making Of mixes 4:3-cropped clips with interviewsoundbites and there’s another six minutes in two parts under the banner,Behind the scenes, but it’s really more of the same, literally, withthe same clips used time and again. Quite entertaining though.
A 15-strong Photo Gallery is also included.
Surround sound is in English, Italian, Spanish and German, with subtitles inEnglish, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Turkish.
The main menu has both music from the film mixed in with clips and soundsjust as good as on the first disc. The film could use more chapters with16 over the 97 minutes.
The Rambo Trilogy on DVD.In a way, it’s the second film but with a bigger budget, more violenceand a different location.Fantastic fun but not much in the way of extras.
Note that this version has been cut slightly. Just a mere two seconds ofcompulsory cuts were required to the sight of an illegal horsefall inaccordance with Cinematograph (Animals) Act 1937. I can live with that.
When it was first cut for video though, a whole three minutes and threeseconds had been chopped. I couldn’t live with that!
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.