rambo-licious

WARNING: "RAMBO" SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE MOVIE AND BE SURPRISED BY ALL OF THE INTRICATE PLOT TWISTS AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT - DO NOT READ THIS ENTRY.

With Oscar night less than a week away, I decided that I should go to the movies this weekend. I wanted to be able to root for my favorite movie on Oscar night, so Rambo was an obvious choice.

When you go to see a movie like Rambo you have a certain level of expectation that is not hard to meet. That being said, Rambo met all of my expectations - and then some.

Here are some of the highlights:

- Rambo actually kills a fish with a bow and arrow. He then gives the fish to hungry children. What a guy.

- There is a scene where he is being convinced by a young, attractive missionary to take her group into war-ridden Burma to help the civilians. In this two-minute scene I counted at least 22 cliches. It went something like this:

Cute missionary: "What if one person could make a difference?

Rambo: "Nothing ever changes."

Cute missionary: "I believe in change."

Rambo: "I believe in nothing."

(I can't say with conviction that these are the exact quotes - but you get the idea. This was the whole scene - one of my favorites.)

- Speaking of counting, we tried to count how many people died. The first 14 were easy. But then there was a massacre of a Burmese village when the act of counting casualties became futile. Ballpark - I'd say at least 350 people were killed in the movie. Maybe more.

- Before Rambo begins his adventure, he captures snakes for a living. Snakes!

- There is a scene right before Rambo decides to join a group of mercenaries who are hired to rescue the group of missionaries who were captured. Rambo is welding a weapon which would later be used to kill the evil leader (more on him below), and he says, "You didn't kill for your country. You killed for yourself." Awesome.

- They make the bad guys really bad. There is a scene where they have these four women dancing for them while they are all drinking at a military camp, and then they all go insane and begin to do horrible things to the women (don't worry - they are stopped - thanks to Rambo). But the leader - he's not interested in the women. Nope. He likes little boys. I know! Evil! (Rambo kills him, too, so don't worry about losing sleep over it.)

- Here is a picture of Rambo hunting fish for hungry children (in case you didn't believe me):


All in all, it was a great cinematic experience. I look forward to seeing how they do on Oscar night next Sunday. Even if you're thinking, "Brian just told me the whole movie," don't let that stop you from seeing it. It'll be well worth the price of admission.