FAQ for
Rambo (2008) Plus avec IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

The music came from the score for the George Romero horror film, Land of the Dead (2005).

The song playing in one of the green band trailers is "Bodies" by Drowning Pool.

Red band trailers rarely, if ever, play in theaters and never on TV. A red band trailer is one that has a red screen with a warning saying the trailer is intended for R-rated audiences only. What are normally seen in theaters are green band trailers which have a green screen saying "approved for all audiences." Red band trailers are normally shown only online and on video. The gore in Stallone's two online trailers (made when the film was still titled John Rambo) will not be shown in any of the official American theatrical trailers or American TV spots.

Evidently nothing was censored. The red-band trailers were so graphic that fans speculated there was no way the film could include those scenes and still get an 'R' rating. But it turns out that the movie is even more violent than the red-band trailers had suggested. For instance, a shot that lasted three seconds in the red-band trailer, lasts for a longer time in the film itself; we see Rambo desperately digging his fingers into the man's throat before ripping it out.

Unless there were even more graphic scenes that we never heard about, this film has been uncensored for its American release.

Many people believe that a film can receive an NC-17 rating only for sexual content and not for violence. This is false. Note that many horror movies, such as the Saw and Hostel films, are released unrated on DVD to avoid the "commercially unfriendly" rating of NC-17. A film can receive an NC-17 rating for violence as well as for sex. See the NC-17 rating for The Evil Dead (1981).

In fact, Stallone has confirmed in a recent interview that Rambo did initially receive an NC-17; but the filmmakers appealed for an R and got it.

Yes. The composer Brian Tyler reassured fans from the beginning that his score would be based on the late Jerry Goldsmith's cues for the first three First Blood/Rambo pictures.

Inexplicably, no. The only music playing throughout the end credits are reprises of Brian Tyler's score.

His full name is John James Rambo.

One source is the Ultimate Edition DVD for Rambo III (1988). There is a feature called "Survival Mode" that gives biographies for the main characters.

Sarah asks Rambo if he has any family back home in the U.S. Rambo replies, "Maybe a father, but I don't know." This sets up the final sequence in which Rambo finds the farm with the mailbox for "R. Rambo" back home.

Richard Crenna, who played Col. Trautman in the first three Rambo movies, died Jan. 17, 2003 of pancreatic cancer. Sylvester Stallone said, "Trautman died the day my friend Richard died."

But Trautman does appear in the film during a dream sequence. It is a montage of black and white clips from the previous three films, including a split second shot from the alternate ending of First Blood (1982), in which Rambo has Trautman shoot him in the stomach, killing him.

Nu Image Films acquired the rights from Miramax.

No. The "decapitation by punch" rumor started with the online red-band trailer. We see Rambo sneak onto the back of a truck and cut off a henchman's head with a large knife (or possibly a machete). The original version of the scene was shot from a low wide angle and with lighting so dull that the knife was nearly invisible. This shot made it look as if Rambo decapitates a man with his bare fist.

Stallone has acknowledged the rumor and laughed about it; but it's false. The trailers and TV spots now show the re-shot version of the scene, which is a closer medium shot made from a different angle. Now that the film has been released, the rumor should die.

Earlier in the film, we see a seemingly defunct "tallboy bomb" sticking out of the ground in the middle of the jungle. Apparently it had been dropped years earlier, but never went off. Rambo, in an attempt to lead the Burmese soldiers away from Sarah and Schoolboy, runs with a piece of Sarah's shirt tied to his boot to attract the soldiers' attack dogs. Rambo finds the tallboy bomb, and straps the claymore mine to it, and then covers it with some leaves and the cloth on his boots. The soldiers arrive and pull the sheet, which causes the claymore to explode, which in turn acts as a detonator for the tallboy bomb.

One possibility:

The weapon that School Boy carries makes a louder noise than a regular rifle or gun would make, especially in the location they are in. The purpose of the shot was to cause an echo that would throw the Burmese off, thus giving Rambo time to run to the old bomb that we see earlier in the film.

Or, more likely:

Rambo removes a piece of Sarah's clothing in order to lure the advancing army to him instead of her using her scent (which the dogs were given in the compound). He then asks School Boy to fire a shot in an attempt to alert the enemy to his presence. Note that, as the rifle report reverberates, Tint and his men stop their vehicles and begin pursuit on foot. Rambo's Claymore gambit wouldn't have worked unless the Burmese army is on his heels - the shot tells them where to look.

A fifth installment seems to be in the works. See: imdb.com/title/tt1206885/

PRO:

A straight-ahead exercise in brutality. -- Pete Vonder Haar, Film Threat

A sort of parody Apocalypse Now, complete with listless coochie dancers entertaining the Burmese troops, the movie finds its own heart of darkness once Rambo drops the doctors in Burma. -- J. Hoberman, Village Voice

Moved to take charge by something like chivalry, Rambo hits his stride in the film's second half, meting out justice in an unjust world and ultimately the movie works best when warbling its out-of-tune greatest hits. -- Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times

Rambo teaches that fighting sucks, good intentions can be futile, and coalitions of the willing are a charade: A man's got to do what a man's got to do. -- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

In the 'Rambo' canon, where does this one fit? The tone is closer to First Blood but the body count is more Rambo III. No matter how one dices and slices this new 'Rambo,' the first one in 20 years, it will likely please fans of the long-in-the-tooth series. -- James Berardinelli, ReelViews

The result is the farthest thing from a bland, spineless sequel: It's a brutal, insanely excessive successor to grindhouse pictures of yore. -- Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide

MIXED:

The Sylvester Stallone nostalgia tour that began with another 'Rocky' continues with this fourth 'Rambo.' Although Stallone plays it completely straight, the mere idea of the aging action star strapping on the bandana again is risible enough to let the movie play like a comedy too, albeit one with an unusually high body count. So while much of the audience will show up to admire what armored-piercing weapons do to human flesh, others can giggle at the notion of Rambo's return in a movie that doesn't risk gumming up its carnage with much of a plot. -- Brian Lowry, Variety

We probably need another 'Rambo' movie like a hole in the head ... or arm, or chest, or neck, or ... But then, the relatively young audience that saw Rambo No. 4 with me seemed to enjoy it. -- Christianity Today

Rambo combines an unapologetic return to the grand action-movie tradition of blowing shit up (one explosion is so big, it leaves behind its own miniature mushroom cloud) with a Saw-era interest in close-ups of human viscera. -- Dana Stevens, Slate

The movie does have its own kind of blockheaded poetry. -- A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Gorier, meaner and uglier than anything Sylvester Stallone has made before, and as such damnably effective in rousing your blood lust, this wind-up groin kicker of a movie seems initially as wary of being pulled back into a dirty job as its reluctant hero. -- Jim Ridley, LA Weekly

This muttering boatman seems to have lost his old-time heroism. No longer is Rambo killing for a cause, but for kicks. And his portentous blather, even by Rambo standards, becomes unintentionally hilarious. -- Desson Thomson, Washington Post

The 61-year-old Stallone would deserve a measure of respect for pulling Rambo off, appalling as it is, but this Fangoria-worthy circus of horrors also features footage of actual Burmese atrocities. -- David Edelstein, New York Magazine

Like a lost recording by the Beatles, Sylvester Stallone's Rambo arrives with its feet planted firmly in the past, a reminder of a time when Stallone, Chuck Norris and other wooden soldiers of the big screen filled multiplexes with the floor-shaking thunder of trivialized war. -- Jack Mathews, New York Daily News

It's 90 minutes of flying, dismembered limbs and explosions of blood, but give the man credit. Stallone can do action. If you want action and nothing but, here it is. -- Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Rambo is surprisingly effective as an action movie precisely because the villains seem truly dangerous and the "mission" truly a death wish.-- Eric Alt, Premiere

The concept of a new Rambo movie, featuring the world's bloodthirstiest senior citizen, seems much less ridiculous following the unexpected critical and commercial success of 2006's Rocky Balboa. -- Nathan Rabin, The Onion (The A.V. Club)

CON:

In short, No. 4 is one big snore. -- Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter

The movie is neither cathartic nor entertaining. The action scenes (and there are many of them) feel mechanized and calculated. -- Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Needlessly violent? No, Rambo is needfully violent. Johnny R. is a man constructed of violence. -- Kyle Smith, New York Post

Rambo isn't dull. It is, however, often murkily directed, a real shortcoming in an action movie. In the big rescue-the-prisoners sequence, it's very hard to keep track of who is doing what to whom where. -- Mark Feeney, Boston Globe

There will be blood in the ultraviolent Rambo, a movie that depicts both heinous acts and righteous reckoning with equal degrees of flying body parts and arterial sprays. -- Steve Davis, Austin Chronicle

The orgy of violence, as ghastly as in any video game, should go a long way toward erasing whatever goodwill Stallone earned with his sentimental Rocky Balboa. -- J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

There is a blessed dearth of dialogue, but much of it is unintentionally hilarious. -- Claudia Puig, USA Today

Can anyone still be rooting for Rocky or Rambo? -- Stephen Cole, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

With its first-person-shooter perspective and gun-andrun narrative, this ones for the PlayStation crowd. Its not a movie. Its an adrenaline pump and purveyor of raw carnage. -- Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

Sources include: metacritic.com

Disc 1: First Blood (Ultimate Edition)

Disc 2: Rambo: First Blood Part II (Ultimate Edition)

Disc 3: Rambo III (Ultimate Edition)

Discs 4 & 5: Rambo (Special Edition)

Disc 6: Bonus Features

NOTE: The bonus features on Disc 6 are exactly the same as the ones on the fourth DVD from the Rambo Trilogy (Special Edition Collection)

No. Sylvester Stallone will be reprising his role as John J. Rambo in the upcoming 2011 Rambo film titled, as of now, Rambo V: The Savage Hunt. Sylvester Stallone is slated to direct the film.