The divisive 1985 movie that “entertained and angered” Steven Spielberg: “Very, very frightening”
It’s almost always a good thing to be feeling more than one emotion when you walk out of a cinema after seeing a movie, but Steven Spielberg wasn’t entirely pleased with the way he felt in the summer of 1985.
On one hand, he knew that he’d seen something uproariously entertaining, but on the other hand, there was something about it that got right under his skin. It wasn’t an especially deep, profound, or thought-provoking picture, but the filmmaker was still under the impression that something wasn’t quite right.
Not that audiences cared, since the film became the second-highest-grossing hit in the United States that year, behind only Back to the Future, and the third top-earning release of the year, just behind Robert Zemeckis’ seminal time-travel adventure and Sylvester Stallone’s cult favourite, Rocky IV.
As it happened, Sly was right in the centre of Spielberg’s personal maelstrom. ’85 was the year he firmly established himself as one of the biggest draws in the business, which is what happens when you play the leading role in two of the year’s three heftiest money-makers, but the Jaws and ET director had his issues with Rambo: First Blood Part II.
As did a lot of folks, to be honest. Whereas the opening instalment was much less of a balls-to-the-wall actioner and much more of a character drama interested in exploring the psyche and mindset of a traumatised Vietnam veteran, not to mention a movie in which Rambo only kills one person, and that’s entirely by accident, the sequel was essentially Ronald Reagan’s wet dream.
In Part II, Stallone is more buff than ever, and he uses that disconcertingly vascular physique to wage a one-man war to effectively right the wrongs of the Vietnam War, traversing behind enemy lines to defy orders, rescue prisoners of war left behind, and shoot, stab, and explode the ever-loving fuck out of anybody who dares to get in his way.
First Blood isn’t subtle about its anti-war sentiments, but by the time the follow-up arrived, it was a wish-fulfilment fantasy about how things should have gone, which made Spielberg uneasy. “I think it’s a potentially very dangerous movie,” he suggested. “Because it’s a ‘this is the way it should have been’ motion picture, which is very, very frightening. It changes history in a frightening way.”
Despite that, he conceded that “it’s a hell of a well-made picture,” too. “It winds you up inside, and when it lets you go, you spin around like a top, and the darn thing is just so much fun to watch.” That said, Part II‘s plot left the three-time Academy Award winner caught in two minds, since he was “entertained and angered at the same time” by a slice of big-budget escapism with a questionable moral compass.
Stallone’s first reprisal of his other iconic role was one of the year’s most divisive movies, with its impressive ticket sales being counterbalanced by a critical reception that could be called tepid at best, never mind four Razzie wins from seven nominations, including ‘Worst Picture’, ‘Worst Screenplay’, and ‘Worst Actor’. Spielberg liked it well enough, but he wasn’t sure how that made him feel on the inside.
