Rambo

The ageless cold warrior is back, though it takes something personal to rouse John Rambo from his self-imposed exile in Thailand. This time it's the horrors of Burma, or more specifically the kidnapping of a small group of white, American missionaries bringing medicine, food and religion to the oppressed Karen villagers (who are brutally massacred in the first act). You can't change the world, he tries to tell these idealists, then forges himself a new knife, picks up his hunting bow and takes charge of their rescue: "Live for nothing or die for something." Blood spurts, limbs fly, and bodies are machine-gunned to pieces and blown into mulch, lots of it aided by gory CGI flourishes, in his brand of gunboat diplomacy. Yes, it is exceedingly violent, and the producers confess that they thought their first submitted cut would get an NC-17 rating, but they got an R without cutting a frame. Sylvester Stallone is too old, of course, but he's such a leathery survivor that it hardly matters. Julie Benz, Paul Schulze, Matthew Marsden and Graham McTavish co-star. As a side note, the film is banned in Burma.

Available in separate wide-screen and full-screen editions, and in a two-disc special edition. Does the film demand a whole gallery of supplements to delve into the finer points of its creation? Not really, and these are a self-congratulatory bunch of featurettes. To hear some of these actors gush about getting cast in the first "Rambo" picture in decades, you'd think Stanley Kubrick returned from the grave to personally direct it. Yet there are some interesting insights peppered through such featurettes as "It's a Long Road: Resurrection of an Icon" (where Stallone describes the style as being "directed by Rambo," trying to capture his hyperaware point of view) and "The Weaponry of Rambo" (they really take this stuff seriously). Note the Rambo speeches cut from the film in the deleted scenes; Stallone knows that the character is better in terse, pithy comments and big actions. "Legacy of Despair: The Struggle in Burma" is a 10-minute documentary on the repressive military dictatorship made long before the hurricane and devastation in Myanmar cast a light on the regime. Also features commentary by Stallone and a second disc featuring a digital copy of the film for Mac and PC. Also available in Blu-ray format.