So after a good half dozen or so sobriquets, the trailer for the simply-titled Rambo, which opens January 25, 2008 is online, and to my mind it elicits mostly shrugs. The action quotient is there, I guess, but the interstitial title card stuff (“In the heart of the jungle… blood will flow… and a warrior will come”) comes across as dated and/or something you’d expect for a movie starring Jon Cena. I was a late (and enthusiastic) convert of Rocky Balboa, it’s true, and I’d much rather see this sort of autumnal career arc from
Sylvester Stallone — involved, hands-on, really trying — than a flicker-fade of
more block-headed genre tripe. Still, I’m even more skeptical about his ability to tap into melancholic regret and life lessons learned with the character of Rambo, who is a relic of Reagan-era machismo in not insignificant ways, than I was with Rocky. This trailer doesn’t provide a lot of the “soul-searching fight within himself” that Stallone has previously mentioned. Here’s hoping it’s at least a little bit of a bait-and-switch…