Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

There are films that arrive at precisely the right cultural moment and end up meaning far more than their scripts probably deserve, and Rambo: First Blood Part II is a fairly textbook example of that phenomenon. Released in May 1985, it landed into a United States still processing the long shadow of Vietnam, still arguing about what the war had meant and who, if anyone, had been left behind. The POW/MIA issue was very much alive in the public consciousness, and the film leaned into that anxiety with considerable force. Whatever you make of what it does with the material, you cannot really separate the film from that political weather. It became one of the highest-grossing films of 1985, a genuine cultural flashpoint, and the name "Rambo" entered the language as shorthand for a certain kind of hyper-aggressive, go-it-alone heroism. That does not happen by accident, even if it does not always happen for the most artistically admirable reasons.

Behind the camera is George P. Cosmatos, a Greek-Italian director who had previously worked on the disaster thriller Of Unknown Origin and the World War II film Escape to Athena. He would go on to direct Sylvester Stallone again the following year in Cobra (1986), and later delivered the rousing Western Tombstone (1993). Cosmatos was a workmanlike, polished but unremarkable director in the best sense, someone who could handle scale and action without getting in the way of a star. The screenplay was co-written by Stallone himself, alongside James Cameron (who had just come off The Terminator), though the two have given rather differing accounts over the years of how much of Cameron's draft survived. Production took place across Mexico (at Estudios Churubusco Azteca) and other locations, with Carolco Pictures and Anabasis backing a budget that was clearly generous enough to fund an impressive quantity of explosions. The film runs a fairly tight 96 minutes, which is about the right length for what it is attempting to do.

Stallone had, of course, established John Rambo three years earlier in First Blood (1982), a film with a noticeably different register and set of concerns. Returning alongside him is Richard Crenna as Colonel Trautman, the character who functions as Rambo's moral anchor and expository mouthpiece in equal measure. Charles Napier brings his reliably hard-edged presence to the role of the duplicitous mission coordinator Murdock, while Steven Berkoff, the British stage actor and director, turns up as a Soviet officer with the kind of theatrical menace he had already deployed in films like Octopussy and Beverly Hills Cop. Julia Nickson appears as Co Bao, a local contact whose role in the story carries some genuine emotional weight, even if the film does not always know what to do with it. It is, on paper, a capable ensemble built around one very large star.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) is a far cry from the gritty, introspective character study of First Blood, and that’s the problem. The original was a powerful exploration of PTSD, veteran neglect, and systemic violence. This one is essentially a 90-minute montage of John Rambo punching, shooting, and blowing up everything in Vietnam… again. Sylvester Stallone returns, bigger, bulkier, and now fully transformed from traumatized drifter into an unstoppable one-man army. There are moments of entertainment, it’s loud, it’s over-the-top, and if you’re in the mood for pure 80s action cheese, it delivers on that level. But it completely abandons the social commentary that gave the first film its soul. Instead, it trades depth for jingoism, turning Rambo into a patriotic symbol rather than a broken man. The plot is flimsy (rescue POWs, fight Russians, survive betrayal), the dialogue is loaded with one-liners, and the emotional weight feels manufactured. Richard Crenna is still great as Colonel Trautman, but even he can’t save the script from veering into cartoonish territory. Fine as mindless action, especially if you love the era’s excess. But compared to the raw power of First Blood? A massive step down. Don’t expect nuance. Don’t expect truth. Just expect explosions, American flags, and a lot of dead bad guys. As a sequel, it’s entertaining… but hollow.

I keep coming back to that comparison with First Blood, because it really is the lens through which this film has to be judged. Strip away the predecessor and you have a perfectly serviceable, loud, cheerfully excessive piece of 1980s action cinema, the kind of thing the decade produced in considerable quantity. But you cannot strip it away, because the whole enterprise is built on that foundation, and the distance between the two films tells you something about how quickly a studio can sand the edges off a genuinely difficult story once it starts making money. It is the same instinct that turns a bruised, morally complicated character into a brand. For me, it is a film I can enjoy on a Friday evening with the right expectations firmly in place, but one I find harder to defend in the morning. Sometimes the most honest thing you can say about a sequel is: they made it bigger, and in doing so, made it less.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 1985  | Watched: 2025-11-16

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from George P. Cosmatos: Tombstone (1993) · Cobra (1986)
More with Sylvester Stallone: First Blood (1982) · Cop Land (1997) · Rocky (1976) · Cobra (1986)
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