Sylvester Stallone is scaring me. He is about to destroy his second best franchise, Rambo. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled there is going to be another Rambo movie. I loved the fourth film. I thought it was brilliant and affirmed what I’ve been saying for years about Stallone. He is an amazing artist! At its core, the Rambo series has always been about the politics of war wrapped inside a hard candy action flick shell. Stallone took things even further with the fourth film, making a hybrid docudrama/action flick. The violence in that film was so realistic it was actually hard to watch in spots. Stallone had perfected the tone of his franchise and now I’m hearing that he wants to take Rambo 5 in a new direction. Sounds good. I trust in Sly. Not so fast, it seems the next Rambo film will be sci-fi. Yes you read that right… sci-fi. This leaves me with only one question… why Sly why?
Nu Image/Millenium Films gave the green light to Rambo 5 a couple of weeks ago and it was reported that the storyline revolves around Rambo fighting his way through human traffickers and drug lords to rescue a young girl abducted near the U.S.-Mexico border. Sounds good to me. A perfect story for a Rambo movie. Unfortunately Stallone debunked this storyline in several conversations with Ain’t it Cool News. He gave a rundown to AICN of what to expect instead and a couple of days later the site released an official synopsis of the film. The film, titled Rambo 5: The Savage Hunt, is being adapted from a novel that Stallone has owned the film rights to for 10 years, Hunter, written by James Byron Huggins. Here’s the official synopsis as reported by AICN.
John Rambo could track anyone – or anything – on Earth. Now the military desperately needs him for a mission that his ultrasensitive instincts tell him he should refuse. A beast is loose somewhere north of the Artic Circle. It has already decimated a secret research facility and annihilated a squad of elite military guards. And the raging creature is headed south towards civilization, ready to wreak bloody devastation.
It’s a job that Rambo and his 22-year-old hunting partner, Beau Brady, can’t turn down, but they and a team of highly-skilled special forces kill team discover that the prey is a terror beyond their wildest imagination – a half-human abomination created by a renegade agency through a series of outlawed genetic experiments. It has man’s cunning, a predator’s savageness, and a prehistoric power that has transcended the ages. And even if Rambo and Beau survive its unrelenting hunger for human blood, they’ll still have to confront the grim reality that it may have grown immortal.
My immediate reaction upon seeing this is that it was a rumor. It couldn’t possibly be true, but a quick visit to Stallone’s official website confirmed it. This is happening ladies and gentlemen.
It sounds like Rambo vs. Predator to me, which I admit is something I would pay money to see, but it just doesn’t fit with the rest of the franchise. If Stallone wants to make this movie, why does it have to be a Rambo film? Why can’t it simply be titled Hunter like the book with Stallone playing a new character. Believe me, I would LOVE to see Stallone kick some mutant ass; especially if he is writing and directing. I just don’t want to see him take the Rambo character out of the real world. As unbelievable as the action in the series is, we cheer Rambo on because we all want to watch a man single handedly win the Vietnam war. We want to watch him liberate prisoners in war-torn Burma. We want to believe that there is a man on our side of the fence that can destroy our real life enemies. Putting Rambo up against a mutant abomination strips away the spirit of the character. It’s like having Rocky Balboa square off against Bigfoot. It just doesn’t work.
I say all this with the greatest respect for Mr. Stallone. I’ve been a huge fan my whole life and will continue to be so. Hell, I’ve gotten into fistfights defending his career and his talent. He is a man who has created two of the most iconic characters (Rocky and Rambo) in the history of cinema, not to mention all of his other great films like Cliffhanger, Lock Up or Stop or My Mom Will Shoot (just kidding about that last one) and I respect him greatly. But please Sly, for the love of God, don’t do this. I understand that your Rambo vs. Predator storyline will make money at the box office, probably more than the fourth installment, but so would a Rambo 5 that sticks to the series’ genre. Just make two movies. It’s really so simple. You just have to ask yourself… why Sly why? Why not make two awesome movies instead of one?