Kevin's Watch

I let my girlfriend talk me into seeing Untraceable instead. Gah.

I feel cheated.

Not showing Down Under yet . . . and I have a few other things I want to see first.

After thinking about the preview, I do have a major concern in that it appears too similar to the basic set-up of II & III. i.e. Rambo, in some self-pitying, self-aware retreat is asked by some figure of authority to go and rescue person/s X. Reluctantly, Rambo does so, all the while killing with detached, yet entertaining, glee. After the message and events of First Blood, I always thought that Rambo's motivations in the sequels didn't quite gel.

Pretty impressive that it nearly won the weekend with $18.1 million.

So . . . no one else has seen this yet? Come on! Give the old man 6 bucks! Support your aging '80s action heroes before it's too late!

Great balls!

Saw it last night and loved it. Easily the most violent film I've ever seen, but really, really good. It's a shame that it didn't have a bigger budget, 'cause some of the CGI looked sketchy, but it was a really well-written, well-directed, and well-acted film.

Great ending too.

I may have to force myself to see it.

Cail wrote:Great balls!

Saw it last night and loved it. Easily the most violent film I've ever seen, but really, really good. It's a shame that it didn't have a bigger budget, 'cause some of the CGI looked sketchy, but it was a really well-written, well-directed, and well-acted film.

Great ending too.

I love this new formula. Let's revive a dead franchise that got really crappy, give it lots of money and a tight, fresh script, and go to town. Really, it's taken Hollywood 20 years to learn again that a good script can make a big budget movie... actually good. (I would actually like to see what that "Top 100 highest grossing movies" list looked like in 1979. Obviously Star Wars is on top, but I'd like to see if the movies are generally of higher quality than the marketing driven successes of the 80s and 90s. (and the 00s too, but it seems like the trend is winding down)

I'm really surprised at how this film is staying with me. This is definitely one for DVD.

Yea! Someone else watched it! I though it was the 2nd best of the franchise. The script was very tight, concise, and focused. Sly really is a good writer. I think people forget that he writes and directs--he's not just a bundle of muscles.

Anyway, we just don't get movies like this anymore, much less action movies like this. It's not a bloated CGI-fest of over-the-top cliches (there's not a single one-liner to found). It's more personal and tragic.

Yes, there was CGI, but this stuff was brutally real. I don't know what you're talking about, Cail. The CGI was amazing. I think the problem is that people just aren't used to seeing what modern weapons can do to a human body. We've had nothing but Hollywood's sanitized version all our lives. Seeing a machine gun turn a human into a splattered pulp just doesn't seem like it should exist in the same plane as little children running about their village. It's hard to process such violence as this film shows.

The CGI was a bit too obvious. I was constantly reminded that I was watching a movie, because some of the effects just weren't well done.

The violence was absolutely unflinching; there were no cutaways like we're used to, and the damage done by the weapons was quite realistic.

I just got back from seeing it. Was sitting about my office, doing very little, so I thought if I was not gonna do any research today, I may as well do something productive. I had a free ticket, but I would have gladly paid to see that. It was bloody brilliant! Loved it. The most violent American action movie I've ever seen. You could have cut the tension with a knife. Great all the way through, but that cimax was just bloody astounding. Definitely far and away the best of the sequels.

Glad to see someone still makes hard core action flicks in the US.

That's a good point. Even when nothing's happening, Sly still creates a lot of tension.

I really, really liked this movie.

I saw this last night, and wish now I'd had a chance to see it in the theater. The small screen TV just didn't do it justice. First Blood is still the best of the lot but this flick was good. I think I'll just pretend that III never happened.