Rambo: First Blood Part II (R, 1985)

This sequel to First Blood was a bigger, dumber, and more financially successful action-blockbuster that opened on a then-record number of movie screens. It finds the muscleman combat-hardened Vietnam-supercommando from the first movie brought out of prison to earn a possible presidential pardon. Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) has 36 hours to be air-dropped into communist Vietnam and seek evidence that American POWs are still being held captive. But his superiors -- Yuppie white-collar types only interested in a cover-up -- don't expect him to succeed. When Rambo does find an active POW camp, the Americans abandon him to evil Russian and Viet Cong forces, and Rambo has to fight his way free -- shirtless, muscles gleaming like an oiled bodybuilder, amidst giant fireball explosions.

"I just saw RAMBO; next time I'll know what to do," famously said President Ronald Reagan, conferring a White House blessing on this action smash-hit. John Rambo, a tragic and mostly human-sized character in the first movie, got peddled aggressively as a Tarzan/Davey Crockett/G.I. Joe combo to 1980s kids, soon showing up in a weekly TV cartoon. Rambo: First Blood Part 2 is cartoonish, and in a B-movie way. When the unstoppable Rambo (he just ignores bullets fired his way half the time) kills a whole Soviet patrol one by one, in a different camouflage disguise/gimmick one edit to the next, you remember Bugs Bunny doing stuff like that to Elmer Fudd or Daffy.

Plus tie-ins with Vietnam War reality, and the melancholy legend maintained by conspiracy-thinkers, that U.S. POWs still languished in enemy hands, seem tactless -- if you take it seriously. If you do scratch below the surface, you may find this overly simplistic message: The U.S. military -- in Rambo's case, one warrior -- could have won Vietnam, or any conflict, if "they" (who? Liberals? Jews? Jane Fonda? Freemasons and Illuminati?) hadn't sabotaged the effort.

Studio: Lionsgate
Director: George Pan Cosmatos
Cast: Charles Napier, Richard Crenna, Sylvester Stallone
Genre: Action/Adventure
Run time: 98 minutes
Theatrical release: May 22, 1985
DVD release: November 23, 2004
MPAA Rating: R