Crimson Peak (2015)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds… and remembers.
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20 films that influenced Crimson Peak
What critics say influenced Crimson Peak
…not a bad plot, having been used in such films as Tears of the Sun (2003) and probably most successfully in The Sand Pebbles (1966).
The men are a diverse crew (British actors Gavin McTavish as the bald and bold Lewis and Matthew Marsden as the likable sniper School Boy are especially memorable) of special-ops types who don't know yet how valuable their guide (Rambo) is, and their banter is a bit reminiscent of The Dirty Dozen -- albeit with a lot more expletives.
Like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Stallone is an idealist masquerading as a cynic, but when the Burmese Army captures and tortures a battalion of deeply annoying Bible-thumpers from Colorado, Stallone springs into action.
Rambo IV is the first in the series directed by Stallone himself, and it's Stallone's first stab at directing full-fledged action -- other than four of the Rocky sequels, Stallone's only previous forays behind the camera were the likable Paradise Alley (1978) and the notoriously bad Saturday Night Fever sequel, Staying Alive (1983).
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The end result of Rambo IV is akin to that of The Dead Pool (1988), the fifth (and probably final) Dirty Harry movie.
Aliens has a strange, mid-80s Rambo-like physicality to it, but it's couched in a reasonable and forgivable context.
When one thinks about Sylvester Stallone, two characters come to mind: Rocky and Rambo.
Made after the “Rocky” films had made Sylvester Stallone a bankable star, “Rambo: First Blood” (which was released simply as “First Blood,” gaining the “Rambo” title in subsequent video releases to remind viewers it was the first in the series) is based on the best-selling book about a Vietnam vet with his back to a wall.
Some 26 years after creating one of the most famous characters of his career, Sylvester Stallone has revived John Rambo one last time for an explosive final chapter of the First Blood film series.
In that sense, Rambo was very similar to the soldiers in 1998's Soldier (with Kurt Russell)... a man programmed to be a killing machine who finds himself adrift when he's discarded or no longer needed.
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The men soon discover the enemy compound, setting the stage for what's probably the best, most violent action movie climax since The Wild Bunch.
It’s made the way hardcore action flicks were in the 1980s and early 90s – the era when even movies as innocent as “Back to the Future” would end with terrorist attacks just for the hell of it.