Three Effing Bears: Rambo Grindhoused

Life is a box of grenades....

This fan edit is very difficult for me to review. Trying to turn any modern movie, but particularly one as iconic as First Blood, into a Grindhouse experience is fraught with difficult challenges. It goes beyond just altering the look or sound, it is about capturing the right tone. And while this constantly swings for the fences, it does not always hit a home run for me.

Visually, I thought the new colour grading and damaged film fx evoked the proper Grindhouse look.

I enjoyed all the new music additions; the A-Team theme in particular made me chuckle. If anything, the new fun throw back music selections made Goldsmith's original score stand out in a negative a way for me. The original score segments sound too good, too professional, too polished for a Grindhouse experience.

The Stallone A.I. voice over -- a brilliant idea. And for the most part it works very well and made me laugh many times. However, there were also many times due to the Stallone impersonation and the mispronunciation of words, I had difficulty understanding what was being said.

And then there was the narrative tone. I found it wildly uneven. The movie swings widely from absurdist parody to dark dramatic action, and for me, that did not always work. I thoroughly enjoyed the insane absurd segments and wished the edit had gone even further into that territory.

There is much to appreciate in this fan edit. To paraphrase Rambo, this fan edit has balls!

Thumbs Up.
:)

I've been on a grindhouse fanediting streak lately, and I decided to check out two of Gieferg's grindhouse edits: Star Beast (A.K.A. Alien Grindhoused) and this one! And between the two, I liked this one a whole lot more! In fact, I might even go so far as to say this might be one of my favorites in this subgenre of fanediting!

This edit is mostly First Blood, but thanks to the addition of other films from the franchise (and the action genre, in general), this edit succeeds in feeling like it's own thing. The utilization of flashbacks doesn't hurt, either. The comedic tone is perfect for a grindhoused Rambo, and it ensured maximum entertainment for the entire edit! The overuse of narration (and swears) gave me plenty of chuckles, and that same narration is used as buildup for what might be one of the funniest uses of the "missing reel" I've seen so far! I won't spoil it, but it got me good.

As for any issues I have, most of it is petty. I guess my biggest criticism is that you can tell that Sylvester Stallone's narration is AI-generated. But in all honesty, the narration was hilarious enough that I didn't care. My only other complaint is perhaps a song or two that feels out-of-place. But even then, they're not too distracting, and they're nowhere near as out-of-place as a few of the songs in Star Beast (Which is a criticism I'll save for my Star Beast review, not this one).

Pettiness aside, this edit was a blast! As is the case with these grindhouse edits, this one is definitely not for the kids! But hey, the Rambo franchise was always adults-only to begin with, and I'm sure most Rambo fans can handle some hard-R content of any kind! Highly recommended for Rambo fans, action movie fans, and anyone looking for more grindhoused edits!

Update (5-27-22): So, going back to petty things again, I got to talk with the editor, Gieferg, over the song choices, and as it turns out, I'm the fool here. The song that bothered me the most was AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." This is because I thought it was an '80's song. But after my mind went "Hey! The Bon Scott era exists!" and went for a quick google search, I found out the song was actually released in 1979 in Bon Scott's final album. So while it is close to being an '80s song, it isn't.

In fairness to the editor, Gieferg has told me that his main inspiration is from TMBTM's "Jaws - Sharksploitation Edit", which also contains songs that are from decades beyond the 1970s. Whether that's a good idea, I'll leave to the viewers. What I will say is that I had no idea I was criticizing a '70's song for not being grindhouse enough. So, in this case, the mistake is mine, not the editor's.

So, you can scratch off my negative statement on the song choices for this edit. My criticism on the AI, though, still stands.