Rambo: First Blood was a movie that went to a place where movies had not gone to before. It is the first time in cinematic history where a Vietnam Veteran took to his own country, albeit it was deserved.

This film centers on John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), a former Special Forces soldier from the Vietnam War. The film starts with Rambo visiting Oregon in search of an old war buddy. When he reaches the family of the old friend he finds out that his war buddy had died the previous year due to cancer i…flicted from the Agent Orange while in Vietnam. Soon after Rambo walks to the local town center, where he greeted by the town Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) and promptly escorted out of town. Once Sheriff Teasle drops Rambo off out of city limits, Rambo promptly begins to walk back to town and this is where all hell breaks loose. Rambo is arrested, he escapes the jail, many policemen die, the US Special forces is called in and many more policemen die and you know the rest.

This film is not exactly deep on meaning, however it does present a decent message. A message that all should be accepted and not pre-judged. It also has some great cinematography and action sequences.

Video

For this transfer Lionsgate went with an AVC encode averaging around 22 - 25 Mbps. This transfer has wonderful color accuracy although a little dull at times and was very sharp as well. Skin tones were spot-on and blacks were decently well reproduced. Much of this movie includes dark scenes, so the accuracy in the dark images was a nice improvement over the DVD version. This movie also had a very limited amount of film grain. This honestly surprised me as I totally expected to see this, yet it was virtually not there. I recently viewed the Studio Canal version of this film on the HD DVD format and was very disappointed with that release as it was on the same level as VHS in my opinion. This lead to some hesitation on my part about purchasing this new Lionsgate version. Well am I ever glad I did. This is without a doubt a substantial improvement over the HD DVD and all DVD releases of this film.

Audio

Audio is where this new transfer excels over its DVD counterpart. As fans of this film know, this movie has a fair amount of dialog and a whole lot of explosions and gunfire. I watched this movie using the DTS-HD option at a bit rate of 1.5 Mbps. The dialog was extremely well presented on the center channel of the 7.1 audio set-up. I could hear conversation better then the HD DVD & DVD versions of this film and the explosions and gunfire made excellent use of LFE and the surrounds. Audio is where I feel this new transfer is the most improved over its HD DVD & DVD counterparts. It is a substantial improvement.

Special Features

This release is loaded with very cool special features. You can choose between Audio Commentaries in DTS by either Sylvester Stallone or Writer David Morrell. There is also a feature called Out of the Blu Trivia, which is essentially little trivia questions pop-up during the movie and you answer them. Next there is a Documentary titled Drawing First Blood which offers a sneak peak into the decision-making processes for Rambo: First Blood with new interviews from the Cast and Crew members. This is followed by a fair amount of deleted scenes and Blu-ray trailers. This release has more special features then most, so this is an unexpected extra.

Final Thoughts

Honestly I was extremely pleased with this release as I never thought I would see an excellent version of Rambo: First Blood in HD. Lionsgate proved me wrong and has really delivered here. The picture quality is by far the best I have ever seen for this film and at times it is breathtaking. The audio quality is where this release really excels with an entire new dimension added to the viewing experience. Dialog is clear and audible (sometimes a challenge when Sly is speaking) and explosions and gunfire are downright thunderous and lifelike. I would highly recommend this film for anyone looking for a high quality action flick from years past and to those who enjoy this movie anyway.

Special Features List

• Two Audio Commentaries
• Out of the Blu Trivia
• Drawing First Blood Documentary
• Deleted scenes
• Trailers