I’m excited about John Rambo for one simple reason: I want to know how quickly Stallone can destroy all the goodwill he got from me with Rocky Balboa. It’s the man’s curse, it seems, to every now and again make a movie that reminds you why he was a Great White Hope back in ’76 and the to immediately come back at you with a movie that reminds you why his name is a reliable punchline.
He’s busy shooting the film right now, looking like a ‘roided up freak (Australian customs calling, Sly), but casting is ongoing, as is often the case these days. The latest addition to the John Rambo Reparatory Company is a name that will be familiar to all the hopeless nerds in the audience – Julie Benz, who played Darla the vampire on both Buffy and Angel. She was Angel’s baby mama, in fact!
Benz is playing the ‘female lead’ in the movie, which sees Rambo coming out of retirement to rescue Christian missionaries in the jungles of Myanmar, probably using the teachings of Jesus as applied to explosive arrows (‘Do unto udders befoah dey do unto you!’, or is that too verbose and witty for Rambo?). I assume that Benz is playing one of the missionaries, and I hope to God she’s not playing Rambo’s love interest, because that would make me more than a little pukey. I hope she’s playing Sam Elliott’s love interest. Or that Sam Elliott is playing Rambo’s love interest.
“Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off! I can’t quit Vietnam!”