The title for Sylvester Stallone’s return to Rambo has changed a number of times over the last year or so, with the latest being the very Volume-7-in-a-juvenile-readers- book-series-sounding Rambo: Pearl of the Cobra. Now Moviehole is reporting that Stallone, who may or may not have smuggled steroids into Australia this week, is saying that the new name of the film is John Rambo.
Well, it’s better than Pearl of the Cobra, that’s for sure. What Stallone is obviously doing is trying to signal that this film will have some relation to Rocky Balboa, probably in a stripped-down approach – maybe even one that hearkens back to First Blood and makes Rambo a human being and not a super-powered killing machine. But the truth is that Rocky Balboa has a ring to it – John Rambo is a blunt and ugly name for a man, let alone a movie.
John Rambo starts shooting in just a couple of days. I found myself very dismissive of Rocky Balboa up until seeing it, and loving it, so I’m going to be much more open-minded about John Rambo.