Actors Studio: First Blood

Rating: Null/10 (31 May 2013)

This slays the first film both in terms of action and as a movie. It is still cookie cutter in the overall rescue mission and revenge arch, but you sort of expect no better in this area. It's always been about the action and the guys themselves.
The actors first. A fun, somewhat revealing way to see them in action is observing how they (the actors) handle the reality of what happens to them. Sly as head honcho shrugs it off, mostly. He has good interplay with Statham and the girl, but he needs them to draw out a few morsels of character. Statham is his usual cocky self. Lundgren as the lumberjack with a brain is a fun sidekick, goofing on precisely this lack of self-awareness that cost him a big stardom. Couture is just not an actor, but he brings a bit of un-actorly, locker-room reality that is valuable as counterpoint to all the quipping and snark.
Arnie and Willis are too big to fit in as core players of the 'real' movie. They appear in the movie like avatars of the actors we know, especially Arnie. The joke is extended when Chuck Norris shows up, at which point we are completely 'outside' of the film—a Norris 'fact' is even brought up in discussion. Van Damme bridges the two worlds, both his character and the actor having fun.
We lose Jet Li who was the only real artist with his body, but gain the wonderful Yu Nan, a marvelous presence that should be in more films, preferably by makers who can put her to good use. What an expressive face! Mixed genuine interest with quizzical amusement, pinning both the ironic distance and emotional link. She is the best thing in this, a new discovery for me.
Second, the action itself. Now if you look at their old films, say Terminator, you'll appreciate that the action is exciting because we assume perspectives inside the action, well a mixture of perspectives in this mode and some in the older, theatric mode favored in Bronson's time. This is now the standard cinematic vernacular for shooting action, but still pretty damn effective. When a car smashes through glass, the camera is not a bystander but bolted on the side of the car. A plane crash is presented entirely from the inside, a similar crash in The Grey is still the best filmed for my taste, most viscerally visual experience but this is close behind. By contrast to all that, we have some pretty shoddy CGI which goes a long way to exemplify that real impact is not in the mass of colliding objects but what gravity you can build in the camera.
A spectacular roller-coaster of destruction opens the film, establishing at the outset that we are in a movie and only movie laws apply—a few hundred extras are disposed, an armored truck barrels up a narrow escarpment. We then stop to have Arnie revealed to us, amusingly as a prisoner that needs rescuing. We then have several more ridiculous, perfectly enjoyable action pieces. But what sets this apart from the last Rambo, Universal Soldier, or Statham movie is that we have all these actors as actors referencing the fact. Some of the quips are just lame ('I'm back'), but again sort of what you'd expect.
I think they'd do well if they loosened this up as an ongoing film universe, where familiar faces, old and new, can zing in and out kicking ass.