From 1982’s First Blood to its third entry in 1988, Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo films
collectively pulled in $615 million worldwide. The fourth film in the saga, the
forthrightly titled Rambo, opened to
$18.2 million this past weekend, good for second place behind 20th Century
Fox’s latest first-quarter spoof flick, Meet
the Spartans.
For an action franchise out of the public eye for almost two
decades, and starring an actor eligible for AARP solicitations, that’s not
necessarily a bad haul. A lot of box office reportage, though, took potshots at
the cobbled-together, $50 million-plus production, and particularly its
multi-hyphenate leading man, characterizing Stallone as more or less washed up
— a fading analog star in a new digital world. The cruel, hard kernel of that analysis may or may not be true, but what does it say about Stallone and the
press corps?
Though generally (and not incorrectly, it must be stressed) rejected by critics (at
last check, it sported a Rotten Tomatoes fresh score of a dismal 36 percent), this
dismissive response toward Rambo can’t
all be judged by the reaction to the product itself. After all, Meet the Spartans was saddled with a
fresh score of 3, yes 3 percent, and
it’s been generally given the free pass equivalent of a what-are-you-going-to-do? shrug. Similarly, 2006’s Rocky Balboa, Stallone’s final chapter
of the other signature cornerstone franchise of his career, actually won
significant critical approval, with a 75 percent fresh rating.
At the crux of the dismissal is some scorn for and derision
toward the man himself; Stallone has always been a figure of hearty
contradictions — a mumbling, muscle-headed guy’s guy almost as likely to quote
Dickens as give a monosyllabic, rambling reply. Though twice Oscar-nominated,
and embraced early on for the ways in which his own rise to prominence mirrored
that of his pugilistic protagonist in the original Rocky, Stallone still was never taken very seriously in superseding
years because the bulk of his choices were seen as lazy.
Cretinous would be too harsh of a word, but his movies and
characters were all too frequently and undeniably set aside as pandering
populist trash. The rep on Stallone reflected that of a star athlete with a very
dodgy work ethic. (In that regard, he would mirror another adopted son of
Allen “We’re talkin’ about practice?” Iverson.) The disbelief was clamorous when
writer-director James Mangold rolled the dice on Stallone for 1997’s
Jersey
York
raised their head at a recent press conference in advance of the release of Rambo, where sample questions included,
“Are people surprised by your artistic motivations since the characters are so
physical?” and “So how did all the various production companies come in?” The
questions themselves are innocuous enough, but their oblique meaning comes
through.
For Stallone, now 61, Rambo is a bit of a legacy project. “The ponderousness that comes with aging, the
sense of weight, the sense of knowledge, of knowing too much, the lack of
naiveté, which happened in my life — all that sort of set the stage for me,” he
says. “I wanted Rambo to be heavier, bulkier. That’s why his first line in the
movie is pretty negative; he’s given up, he has nothing. The other Rambos I felt had a bit too much energy,
they were a little too spry. I’m not trying to run myself down, but there was
much more vanity involved: tank tops, it was all about body movement rather
than just the ferocity and commitment of what he was doing. This character, to
me, is much more interesting. I like First
Blood and I like this one, just like the first Rocky and the last one, Rocky Balboa. Everything in between was kind of trying to figure out what I should
do.”
For Stallone, that meant setting out to make a movie that
was “just man against man, [about] their intolerance of each other.” He
rejected ideas that put Rambo in the middle of more fanciful conceits,
insisting that real-life strife was the proper backdrop to bring this franchise
full circle. (That’s why Rambo opens
with actual images from the quelled pro-democracy demonstrations in late
September of last year, protests which were met with brutal force.)
That led him, along with a crew of roughly 570, to shoot on
location in
under arduous conditions. “There are 165 different snakes in
90 [of which are] poisonous, so we lived with the constant problem of people
being bit,” says Stallone. “There are centipedes the size of your shoe being
found in your shoes. It was rough,
but welcome to action films. You know what it actually reminded me of? I was just
watching the making of David Lean’s The
Bridge Over the River Kwai, and how much they just had to chuck, and use
brutal manpower to get inland. There’s nothing glamorous about it.”
If there’s little glamour, there is plenty of violence,
however, something that attendees of the press conference were certainly abuzz
about. “I did have a caveat with the MPAA,” explains Stallone. “I said, ‘Guys,
this is happening today. If we’re ever going to do something responsible where
art has the ability to influence people’s awareness and impact the lives of
these people, don’t dilute it, don’t water it down. It’s got to be uncomfortable.
It is uncomfortable — it’s miserable,
it’s distasteful, it’s horrifying. But [to] do violence light, it’s just wrong.
Don’t cut away too soon. Just let it sit in. I want people to feel it.’”
diminishing with his age, but they seem to still feel it.
journalists, on the other hand, are another matter…
For the full, original feature, from FilmStew, click here.