Monday, June 27, 2016

Let's Talk About Rambo: Episode 29: Lagoon of Death

John Rambo and KAT are chilling in Venice, overseeing the renovations to a historic museum. Rambo appears to be super in art, but KAT probably wishes she was hyperextending somebody's elbow.

Incredibly, Gripper and Sgt. Havoc are riding by on a classic Venice gondola at just this moment. They're on their way to a local monastery, where they hope to force the monks to create high-tech missile nosecones from ceramics. They assume that the monks can do this within six hours of being kidnapped. After Gripper spots Rambo through his binoculars...

Apparently he was doing some sightseeing.
... Havoc can't help but take a few shots at Rambo and crew with a rocket launcher. The museum is almost destroyed and Rambo has to swing on a rope to save a burly workman while KAT just hangs out. Rambo asks KAT if she saw where the rockets were being fired from. KAT does not know.

"Why would anybody want to destroy this beautiful old building?" KAT asks, as though they just found some graffiti on the walls instead of just having three canal-to-air rockets shot at them.

SAVAGE's base turns out to be this really cute little house built out on the lagoon. General Warhawk is pissed that yet again Rambo has coincidentally shown up in the same location as one of his schemes. That's the risk you run when you've got schemes going down in literally every corner of the world, says I. Havoc reassures Warhawk that it's just because Rambo is "an art lover." They discover Rambo's hotel but it's too late to launch an assassination attempt tonight so they decide to wait until morning.

The next day, Rambo's pizza breakfast is interrupted by Mad Dog and his gang, who are riding their attack three-wheelers through the streets(?) of Venice and yelling that they "can't wait to cut that turkey into spaghetti!" Rambo stops lecturing KAT about the high quality of Venetian glassware just in time to fend off the attack by weaponizing his pizza, discus-style, and then turning his patio table into a deadly ramp that Mad Dog can't avoid jumping off of.

As Mad Dog escapes in a speedboat, Rambo gives chase in the attack jeep. He drives up ahead, gets on an overhanging bridge, and slices off the back half of their boat with a surprisingly short burst of machine gun fire!

Then he jumps on the sinking boat and beats the crap out of him.
It might be the most Rambo thing I've ever seen, and let me remind you that I've seen Rambo ride on the back of a great white shark.

From there, SAVAGE decides to put their plan—a plan Rambo would know nothing about if they hadn't alerted him to their presence in Venice twice for no reason—into action. Meanwhile, Rambo and Turbo are checking out an arm-wrestling bar in search of Havoc. The competitors refuse to tell Rambo anything unless he goes OVER THE TOP on their asses.

Which he does.
These arm wrestlers really know what's going on in town.

While Rambo does recon on the monastery in the attack chopper, the rest of the Force of Freedom meets with local political leaders to outline the situation. The mayor, concerned about his approval rating if the media finds out, wants to bomb the monastery—which apparently the media would be totally cool with?—but Rambo shows up just in time to stop him. It seems that there's for some reason a lot of precious art in the monastery that Rambo wants to preserve. The mayor agrees and offers him tanks, guns and planes. Rambo refuses: all he needs is some old clothes for KAT and one gondola full of fish.

You can guess what happens next.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

What's Rambo Doing on His Day Off? #19




Overseeing the renovations of a historic museum in Venice.


As seen in Rambo: The Force of Freedom episode 29: Lagoon of Death.

Monday, June 6, 2016

What's Rambo Doing on His Day Off? #18


John Rambo scales a tree and rescues a frankly embarrassed-looking cat from its vile branches. KAT, meanwhile, is nowhere to be seen.

As seen in Rambo: The Force of Freedom episode 28: Night of the Voodoo Moon.