Odeon kicks Rambo in the 'nads

How many people...

wait until they arrive at the cinema before deciding what film they want to see?

If people really wanted to see Rambo and found their local Odeon wasn't showing it, would they not just go elsewhere? Perhaps there wasn't that many people "really looking forward to it" after all and the marketing people should stop believing their own hype?

be kind.

Well, the size and power of Sly's weapon no longer intrigues me the way it used to. Guess I've grown up even if 'the Motion Pictire Industry (tm)' has not... Plus Mark Kermode gave it a right royal slagging on the beeb film podcast :-)

The one to watch surely has to be 'Be Kind, Rewind'. J.Ross tried to dismiss it by saying it looked like 'a load of joined together YouTube clips'. But I thought "Cool!", I have seen far more creativity and general entertainment from random Internet video than Hollywood recently.

I just hope that the tireless parade of sequals pasing for the mainstream movies these days are the final fire sale of this not very creative 'industry'.

guys like big boom

just ask the Mythbusters!

Mine's the crash test dummy marked slicker

So what

Who cares, pirate it.

Entertaining

I appear to have stumbled into the Entertainment News section. :(

I liked it

"...attracted criticism for failing to adequately explore the inner turmoil of the eponymous hero,..."

Well, it's not quite as good as "Rocky Balboa" but at least it attempt to deal with the turmoil of being a soldier. A friend also said she appreciated that the rape scene was clearly violent and not at all erotic.

"...preferring instead to substitute subtle analysis of Rambo's psyche with heavy-calibre firearm rounds and lots of stuff exploding."

Yup, lots of things going boom. And as typical with Hollywood they get the explosions and wounding wrong, with lots of gasoline fireballs and more blood than a slaughter house. The "Tall Boy' bomb explosion was way too big. (At least, like Chekhov's gun, having shown the bomb in Act 3, they blew it up in Act 4. :)

@Red Bren

This probably will come as surprise to you, but there are many parts of the UK where people don't have a choice of Cinema - these also seem to be the places where Odeon thrive (i.e. why would you go there if you had a choice).

Odeon listens to Radio 5

Maybe Odeon's "commercial decision" was based on Mark Kermode's ranting last week:

"It's like watching somebody who is down on their knees saying 'Give me a pile of money and i will do absolutely anything, I have no moral fibre what-so-ever, I have no narrative fibre what-so-ever, I have no political understandong what-so-ever'" and "I can't remember recently being so depressed"

Awful cinema??

"Saying that - I don't much like their competition either. Vue is awful, with tiny screens and knackered cinemas."

Mark W

Surely its up to Odeon whether they screen a film or not? But I guess it does restrict your choice.

Luckily in the Bath and Bristol area we have several cinemas to chose from, a Cineworld (I avoid it) 2 Odeons, and would you believe 2 Vues. One of which I worked at for 2 years, so I take offence at the screens being awful, and 'tiny / knackered'. We always kept ours in tip top condition, with tidy seats and carpeting. Sound and picture quality was always excellent.

Mine is the gore tex one with the fleecy lining.

Local Independant for me

Having recently ventured into my local independent recently, I was surprised the cost hadn't trebled in the several years since I had last been.

It was pretty empty there , but still cheaper and nearer than the 45mins away odeon. No super surround sound but you cannot have everything. Looks like I will be going back for John J

Tux , cause he is the nearest thing you have to a hippy icon

@ Awful cinema??

You forgot my local... the Orpheus - as featured on Paul Merton's Silent Heroes (well at least the entrance staircase was!). Maybe small screens etc but its only 5 mins walk away!

@Naadir Jeewa

"It's like watching somebody who is down on their knees saying 'Give me a pile of money and i will do absolutely anything, I have no moral fibre what-so-ever, I have no narrative fibre what-so-ever, I have no political understanding what-so-ever'"

Oh, I didn't know it was full of politicians.

Bugger!

I'd have paid twice to see a pile of them shot & blown up & garrotted & drowned & pulled limb from limb & burned & impaled & eaten alive by heat maddened slugs &... &...

Sorry, I've got to go and lie down now.

RE: "People were really looking forward to it ..."

According to the first poster, my mind would melt if I had to watch something that actually has more of a Plot than Rambo. I really like Rambo, Rocky, Terminator, Commando, Predator, Die Hard etc.

Having an Engineering diploma, Software Engineering Degree and starting a OU Maths Degree next year,most people wouldn't consider me a thicko, (though I admit my English is far from perfect).

My mind is tired at the end of the day. I want to go home, workout a bit at the gym, go out and not have to think too hard.

Some Mindless Violence or a crappy US Police Drama/Sci fi usually fits the bill quite nicely usually before or after a pint down the pub.

So you can sod off.

Orpheus

Whoooo! The Orpheus is my local cinema too!

It's the best cinema.

How can you beat a three screen cinema with the old style paper tickets above a supermarket?

No Rambo? Great!

I just saw "First Blood" for the first time. And wondered how they got from a fairly decent film about PTSD meeting small-town petty-dictator attitudes, with a bodycount of zero (inflicted by Rambo anyway), to that kind of max-massacre kill-em-all rubbish. Not that I can guarantee Rambo 4 will be like that, but on past showing I know which way the odds are stacked. :-(

The dead vulture because, hell, this is a Rambo film and anything that moves gets shot...

So, I've gotta ask...

Am I the only person that's been referring to this movie as "Ramb-Old"...?

Who cares???

It's just a rehash of a classic 80s film. You could do this stuff 20 years ago. Not sure sure a killfest will fly in these modern times.

Cinema shortcuts

My local cinema (Wimbledon Odeon) charges what I thought was an eye-watering £7.80. That was, until I went to the Vue in Fulham Broadway where it was £8.50 or so.

The way around it? Orange Wednesdays for Odeon and 1300 Nectar points for Vue.

The alternative is a schweet broadband connection (properly uncapped or shaped) for those films you don't really want to watch, but sort of do, but definitely WON'T pay a bollock to watch (Fantastic Four, Deja Vú, that kind of thing).

Actually, that's provoked some images of Jessica Alba. I need to go and lie down for a while.

Paris, coz, well... just coz.

More propaganda from the US

Yawn.

1) Go to foreign country(ensure natives are not white).

2) Annihilate local populace.

3) Rinse and repeat.

Paris because she is in no danger from Sly.

Just wait

It will be out on *-disk in a few weeks so you can watch it on a high-def screen of your own on a nice clean seat in a nice clean living room. Hang on, let me just move that pizza box for you...

Odeons and Blockheads

The last time I went to an Odeon was in Gants Hill when Ian Dury and the Blockheads were performing. I dread to think how many decades ago that was...

It nearly ended in disaster too because the boarding erected over the organ pit (yes, yes, organ, erection... ho, ho, ho) hadn't been designed to withstand the repetitive impact of several hundred people pogoing at the front of the theatre. The floor gave way and it was only the carpet that stopped people plummeting thirty or forty feet!

It was a good gig, though.

Tom Robinson also performed there - "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and "Sing if you're gad to be gay" were two of the songs he sang. Hence the happy face.

Oh dear

It's a film.

It's probably cr*p, although it's a genre I like for the escapism factor.

Lots of films are cr*p.

I can't believe I'm even commenting on this :(

Too expensive. Too shoddy.

The local UCI multi-screen cinema in Greenwich has been going downhill since Odeon took over. It's also gone up in price recently. £8 something. An effin ripoff!

I was hoping that with the advent of digital projection and 3D there would be more IMAX like experiences on standard sized screens appearing. It's something they are doing a lot more in the US. Yet even our 'big' cinemas in the city don't offer it (Apart from Leicester square for the occasional digital and the one at Portaloo for IMAX & 3D).

3D like that you cannot replicate at home. They should play on that advantage and start upgrading some of the cinemas. Sadly I don't think there is enough investment money available for it over here (At least from the cinemas themselves). Studios shoudl invest in cinemas to help update them instead of just blowing all their budget on Mr Stallone's paycheck. And they wonder why people download and watch at home on their shiny new home cinema systems. Especially people with families where it costs a small fortune and inconvenience to take their kids to the piccies.

@TimNevins

Except if the foreigners are russians. Then it's a-ok.

@ StopThe Propaganda

"What we *can't* do (legally) is blow stuff up, kill our enemies and sack their villages. Nor can we slay dragons, play around with magic rings, dogfight in spaceships, shag a bevy of bisexual female supermodels, or travel thru time. *That's* the sort of thing we want movies for, and that's the sort of movie that sells, whether "film critics" and milquetoast pansies agree or not."

That's exactly why I go to the movies too - well said that man! I went to see Rambo IV last week, and I thought it was great. No brain-strain required, just loads of nice de-stressing brutal and gratuitous violence - just what the doctor ordered.

What I also like about Rambo is that it doesn't pull any punches in depicting war as a bloody, soul-destroying horror. The character of Rambo shows exactly what war does to people, how it turns them into misanthropic, burned-out zombies inured to the worst horrors and unable to live in "normal" society. It's also one few American franchises that does not glorify the US with all the usual flag-waving patriotic bullshit that commonly spews out of Yank war flicks. It merely shows that war is not something we'd ever personally want to experience; there's no honour or glory, only needless suffering and death.

So I really enjoyed it, on both fronts - I get to see lotsa blood'n'guts and vent some steam, and I get reminded that I don't ever want to see a battlefield in real life. And I have no regrets about spending the money to go and see it.

@StopthePropaganda

While films like Rambo have a purpose, and I've enjoyed some similar ones (or the ones about a magic ring, evil killer-robot-governor from the future, etc), your understanding of art as something for the snobs and a real-life replacement is really sad.

Even cavemen liked to paint something on their walls once in awhile and appreciated such things that added beauty to their lives. But modern man often wants nothing but to be entertained, to get something that would help pass the time (the ultimate non-renewable resource one has, but that is an another matter), discarding and despising anything that requires some mental effort to be enjoyed.

If only...

...they'd stuck more faithfully to the book's ending. Rambo dies.

Now I am irredeemably shallow, and thus my idea of a good fillum is something with lots of sex, violence and helicopters, but two Rambo movies was one too many.

I, Cosmo Larringsman, have spoken.

Alternatively

You could save your £8 (if you complain about paying £8 to go see a film, you evidently should be spending your money on something else), do something else with your 2 hours like take a walk, see 3 dimensional people and interact with them (I'm sorry but anyone who says sitting in a large room staring silently at a screen, in the dark for6a couple of hours is socialising, is sorely mistaken).

You could then donate your £8 to worthwhile cause, perhaps Warchild, therefore helping the people who's lives are actually affected by war, rather than going to watch Sly attempt to "raise awareness of the trauma of war" (his words not mine), but not actually achieve anything, other than add another million to his pension fund.

On a lighter note, I watched Quantum Leap for the first time in years (Ironic considering it was when Jumper came out and Dr Sam Beckett was in Vietnam). Now, if that is not the greatest TV theme tune of all time, I don't know what is!!! Forget you A-team, MacGyver and Airwolf. God was a TV theme tune writer, the day that music ot written.

Mines the Anorak with Ziggy in the pocket, can you hear it beeping???

Rambo does die

YouTube has an alternative ending for First Blood. This shows Rambo being killed. David Morrell did have it spot on.

@Ryan Greenaway: SACRILEGE!!

> Forget you A-team, MacGyver and Airwolf.

Forget the A-Team theme tune? Do you actually want me to go out and find them so they can blow you up (but only to have you stumble away from your vehicle, slightly dazed and shaken)?

'copter icon. Nuff said.

@Aram

Fair Point, I wouldn't want to be near an exploding oil barrel, which would blast me several feet. Luckily, you would never hear, nor see me ever again, and can only assume I lived.

You had to feel sorry for the guy who became, the only person EVER to die on the A-team!!!

However, the A-team theme tune is far too mainstream now, I think it's time for Dr Sam Beckett to take one last leap, hopefully, it'll be his leap home.

Helicopter icon,cos Sam Beckett never had a problem getting on no plane fool!!!

@ "people still visit Odeon"

Yeah, they do. Especially in Exeter, where our "not overly glamourous" odeon was shafted by Vue, who opened a rubbish alternative, charging *even more* than Odeon, but got the crowds flooding in as they're supposedly better

I'm not sure how, (ignoring the horrid cord carpet, seating, OVERLY LOUD CENTRE SPEECH SOUND and poor audio imaging) that you exit via the unpainted, unfinished fire exit says it all.

Oh, and then Odeon dropped pricing to £4.50/movie. Thanks Vue, you just boosted the amount of time I go to cinemas, and guess what, you're not on my list. Utter rubbish.