RAMBO III (1988) Revisited: Sylvester Stallone Movie Review

In 1987, Sylvester Stallone’s arm-wrestling Cannon camp classic, Over the Top, was a box office bomb. This was a shock, as Stallone had had the number 2 and 3 highest-grossing movies of the year in 1985 and had Cobra in 1986, which was a blockbuster. His box office power seemed impossible to challenge. Alas, a flop is a flop, so for his follow-up, Stallone turned to one of his most famous characters ever in 1988’s Rambo III. The third instalment of the series is often looked down at as the silliest film in the franchise. Boasting a story that perhaps hasn’t aged very well, with Rambo making his way to Afghanistan to help the Afghan Rebels fight the Russians, post 9/11, the film was suddenly more controversial than it had ever been intended to be. Still, the same could be said about many eighties action movies, with the James Bond outing The Living Daylights having a very similar plot. It’s worth noting that the Russians had withdrawn from Afghanistan by the time the film hit theaters. Indeed, t