Sylvester Stallone did a great job with Rocky Balboa, bringing a franchise that had become too overblown and cheese-ified back to its indie roots. He proved that he could act and direct, and that he wasn’t ready to let his career slip away from him just yet. His next film, John Rambo (or apparently just Rambo, depending on who you believe) is a whole new ballgame, however. He’s resurrecting another classic character, but something tells me this one’s going to be a much harder sell. Earlier this year we saw a rough promo for the film, and it was violent as all hell. That had a lot of people excited (myself included), but we know it’s going to take more than blood and guts to make this a worthwhile film. Now we have our first look at the first “official” trailer for the movie, complete with all the cliches that most action movie trailers bring, and it has me second guessing this project a bit. I’m hoping for a throwback to 80’s action movies but I can’t shake this feeling John Rambo is taking itself too seriously. Rocky Balboa was pretty dark and serious too, but it was a character-driven film, and it worked. Since this is set in the real-life locale of Myanmar/Burma, if it comes off as trite, I think a lot of people might call it exploitative. Check out the trailer and see what you think. John Rambo hits theatres on January 25th.

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