The best Sylvester Stallone performances can already make you cry, so This Is Us might deliver a one-two punch in Season 2. The breakout NBC drama has tapped the Rocky icon for a paternal Season 2 role – yes, as himself.
“Nothing is over!” These are the words of Col. John J Rambo, the hero of ‘First Blood’ (better known as ‘Rambo’) and then ‘Rambo: First Blood Part II’ and then ‘Rambo III’ (the only one people call by its actual title and then ‘Rambo’ (better known as ‘Old Rambo’). After what basically amounts to a movie-long chase, ‘First Blood’ concludes with a heartfelt speech from star Sylvester Stallone, explaining how nothing (meaning the Vietnam War) is over for him; that his mind is too scarred from his brutal deeds and by the cruel treatment he’s received on the homefront. It’s a powerful (if occasionally incomprehensible) scene.
Sylvester Stallone has had two great franchise characters, Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, and was able to resurrect both over the last decade successfully. But though Balboa's gloves are hung up (even if Stallone recently paid homage to that character), it looks like we're going to get a 'Rambo 5' that promises to be one of the most thoughtful of the series' sequels.
Call us suckers, but going by the new trailer for 'The Expendables 3,' we think this may be the one that finally gets it right. Both 'The Expendables' and 'The Expendables 2' were well-meaning but sloppy nostalgia exercises, but we're hoping that the third time is the charm and that this one will be a well-meaning and actually entertaining nostalgia exercise.
Taken aback as we were to learn that a potential 'Rambo' TV series had begun the development phase, with Sylvester Stallone in negotiations to be involved creatively and potentially reprise the role, it now seems an understandable caveat has been put in place. Stallone himself will not re-don the headband as John Rambo, should the series make it through development, but what direction might the ne