Sean’s movie thoughts

I heard the new Rambo Last Blood is bad. Reviews are bad, even the review on Bloody Disgusting is pretty bad. Oh well, maybe some franchises are not meant to last forever. I've heard this movie described as a Taken knock off that turns into a Saw knock off. One of the film critics I follow was accused of being woke for noticing that all the Mexican characters are scummy. If all the Mexican characters in a film are scummy, noticing that doesn't make you woke, it makes you awake. Also I am not sure what is wrong with being woke. I am not sure why Stallone wanted to bring Rambo back one more time. Maybe there was an interview that I missed but I thought Stallone had pretty much put the character to bed. I think I will skip this movie at theaters and maybe catch up with it later. Or maybe I will never catch up with it.

Sylvester Stallone has made some good movies, maybe a great movie or 2, and some bad movies. Lock Up might be a bad one but I like it anyway. Stallone plays a criminal named Frank who is transferred to a bad prison. (It is not the worst prison I have seen in films.) The warden of the bad prison (Donald Sutherland) has a grudge against Frank. Basically the plot involves the Warden trying to break Frank. Frank is just trying to survive but he can be pushed too far. Some guards see the things going on and seem uncomfortable. They are not uncomfortable enough to do anything. Stallone is likable as Frank. The rest of the cast is pretty good. John Amos plays the head of the guards. It seems a long way from his role as the father on Good Times. Sutherland is good as the warden, he is as evil as any of the prisoners. Is this worth seeing if you haven’t seen it? Maybe. I have said before that I like an action movie with smaller stakes and I tend to like Stallone. This is melodramatic at t...

I re-watched First Blood. It remains good. Stallone was really good as John Rambo. I often look at Stallone and think about Rocky Balboa, he is so tied to that character. I did not really think of Rocky while I re-watched this. John, a Vietnam veteran, comes to town to see an old friend but the old friend died of cancer the year before John came to town. John is walking around town when the sheriff approaches him and the sheriff arrests John on some bogus charge of vagrancy and possibly resisting arrest. The sheriff was trying to get John out of town but John did not want to go. John is taken to jail and a few of the deputies treat him badly. John escapes the jail and then the police try to recapture him. John escapes into the woods, where his military background and training gives him some advantages. That is pretty much the plot. If the sheriff and his deputies had not been so harsh to John there would have been no problems. The sheriff looked at John and was convinced John wou...

Cobra is a Sylvester Stallone movie about a cop trying to stop a serial killer. However it turns out he is facing a gang of killers. It has a bad critical reputation. It is bad. Stallone has been better, this might be his worst performance. He is hard to understand at times. (He might have been overdoing the tough guy voice.) The supporting cast is not terrible but it is not good enough to redeem the film. The villains are not interesting, and the action scenes might be average at best. I think this was supposed to be Stallone’s attempt at Dirty Harry or a tribute to Dirty Harry.  It might be Stallone’s worst movie of the 1980s. He might have made a worse movie or two in the 1990s. If you have not seen this in a while, I’d advise not rewatching it. If you have not seen it, maybe that is a good thing.

The Rocky theme is cheating. It is nice to hear it, so maybe the Rocky and Creed movies should be selective in using it.  Even a slow down piano version of the Rocky theme is really good to hear. Michael B. Jordan returns as Adonis Creed, the illegitimate son of the former boxing champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). Adonis is now the champion but Victor Drago, the son of Ivan Drago, is a contender and wants his shot at the title. Ivan Drago killed Apollo Creed in a boxing match. This is good. It is nice to see Dolph Lundgren return as Ivan Drago. Jordan is good as Adonis Creed and his relationship with Rocky is given some time. It is always nice to see Stallone as Rocky (if you think I am forgetting a few of the lesser Rocky movies, maybe I am). Tessa Thompson returns as Bianca, now Adonis’ wife. She does not have a plot of her own but she has nice moments. The fights are brutal.