Macdonald, Peter

Rambo Trilogy (Ultimate Edition DVD Collection) (3-Disc Collector Set) - (First Blood/Rambo: First Blood Part II/Rambo III)

Rambo III

When Col. Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) is captured during a top-secret mission in Afghanistan , Rambo erupts into a one-man firestorm to rescue his former commanding officer and decimate the enemy. This intense, heart-pounding adventure boasts unrelenting action and suspense from start to finish.

System Requirements:

The Lost Empire

This three-hour made-for-television epic based on the classic Chinese story Journey to the West is an engaging mix of fantasy and martial-arts adventure, and it features a veritable tsunami of special effects. The plot involves an American China scholar (played by Thomas Gibson) whose knowledge of Asian mythology becomes astoundingly useful when he is magically transported into other dimensions by terra cotta warriors who come to life. The American scholar soon finds himself face to face with a wisecracking Monkey King (Russell Wong), a mystical warrior whose martial-arts skills are matched only by his sarcastic one-liners. The mismatched heroes have only three days to find an ancient manuscript and thereby save the world from destruction, and they're assisted by the timely interventions of the Goddess of Mercy (played by Bai Ling). The rambling plot puts the characters into confrontations with tigers, dragons, and evil giants, and at times they're joined by such unorthodox allies as a human with the head of a pig. As his quest progresses, the scholar has to learn to think like a warrior, and there are innumerable obstacles put in his path. Even if the plot doesn't always seem terribly coherent, the computer-generated special effects are entertaining, and the film has no shortage of bizarre villains, flashy martial-arts scenes, and sardonic quips from the Monkey King. --Robert J. McNamara

The NeverEnding Story III - Escape From Fantasia

Mo' Money

Sort of comedy, sort of not, this film--cowritten, coproduced, and co-starring Damon Wayans--concerns a loser who takes an entry-level job at a credit company to impress a girl and soon gets caught up in fraud and blackmail. Marlon Wayans, Damon's brother, costars as a confederate in the chicanery. The film is meant to be both a jokefest and an edgy drama--the criminal activity is treated as a dark and serious matter--and the result is that Mo' Money succeeds on neither level. --Tom Keogh

Legionnaire

Exiled to a video-only release when its distributor balked after the flop of Jean-Claude Van Damme's previous film Knock Off, this lavish adventure deserved a chance at theatrical success. Action icon Van Damme recasts himself as a tragic romantic hero in this entertaining old-fashioned adventure with a modern sensibility. "The Muscles from Brussels" is no Brando, but he acquits himself nicely as a cocky boxer who double-crosses a Marseilles mobster and joins the French Foreign Legion when his half-baked plan backfires with tragic consequences. Surrounded by a better than usual cast (including Steven Berkoff as a Teutonic drill sergeant, Jim Carter as the ruthless ganglord, and Nicholas Farrell as a gentleman soldier with a taste for gambling and a dark past), Van Damme's dour performance sometimes gets lost in the colorful characters around him. But that's okay--there's adventure enough to go around and he's willing to share it. The Marseilles scenes evoke a quaint movie past with their smoky bars and shadowy streets, but the film is reborn as an ambitious, stoic platoon drama in the sands of French Morocco. Legionnaire alludes to classic films from Beau Geste to Casablanca to Lawrence of Arabia, but ultimately marches its own macho course, reveling in testosterone-driven heroics and bonding-under-fire while acknowledging the irony of its colonial mission ("We're the intruders," realizes one soldier). It's a calculated risk for Van Damme (who also cowrote and coproduced), but if Legionnaire never quite grasps the epic scope it's reaching for, it remains one of his best films, a handsome, exciting, and surprisingly grim desert adventure. --Sean Axmaker

The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave

"Kids, don't try these stunts at home." Super Dave Osborne is Evel Knievel with a lobotomy, a klutzy stunt superstar powered by guts, courage, and pure moral integrity--which makes up for a single digit I.Q. Created as the daredevil alter ego of former Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour writer and sketch performer Bob Einstein, his entire schtick is based on ambitious stunts gone horribly, and comically, wrong. He's crushed by falling objects, sent flying by exploding vehicles, and flattened by one fall after another, all with the stoic (one might say stupid) calm of a Zen masochist. Such gags were funny in the short bursts of the cable series that spawned Super Dave, but wear thin in his first feature-length comedy, a spoof involving a sleazy promoter (Dan Hedaya), the accident-prone mother of a terminally ill boy, a ranch full of mimes (!), and a climactic half-mile leap over trucks packed with dynamite and toxic waste. The juvenile comedy is played like a Saturday morning cartoon with fart jokes, big and broad, and the stunts look as phony as they are. It might tickle the funny bone of adolescents, but will hold little interest for anyone over the age of 12. --Sean Axmaker

Break out the body-casts! The world's most painfully hilarious stuntman is back with a powder-keg of laughs! Super Dave Osborne (Bob Einstein) gives a crash course in comedy in this wacky adventure of daredevil antics, whip-lash humor and crash-test love that'll break every funny bone in your body! Things couldn't get much worse for Super Dave. After a near-fatal accident he discovers that he's been bankrupted by his swindling manager and foreclosed on by the bank. Devastated and ready to hang up his crash helmet, Super Dave finds strength in a klutzy-but-cute single mom (Gia Carides, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me!) and her ailing young son, Timmy. And when he learns that Timmy needs an expensive heart operation, Super Dave shuns retirement to raise the money. Even if it means facing off against his arch enemy, Gil, a slimy sports promoter (Dan Hedaya, Dick), to once again prove that he's not only the most outrageous dare-devil he's also the most accident-prone!

Rambo Trilogy (Special Edition DVD Collection) - (First Blood/Rambo: First Blood Part II/Rambo III)

Six hours of monosyllabic John Rambo high jinks, best savored in surround sound (for the bone-rattling explosions) and with your brain on pause (for everything else). Sylvester Stallone's second signature character, after Rocky, a seething ex-Green Beret killing machine, went from Viet-vet victim in the original picture, First Blood, flipping out over the ingratitude of his beloved homeland, to a muscle-bound terminator in Rambo III, mowing down Commies in the deserts of Afghanistan. You should consider bypassing the boxed set in favor of just the middle chapter, Rambo: First Blood Part 2, written by James Cameron and directed by George Pan Cosmotos. It's the most balanced and satisfying of the three films: Rambo is dropped back into 'Nam to rescue some POWs, and the action builds steadily in scale and ferocity. Each fireball seems to be bigger than the last. Of all the recent headbanger action movies, only the first Die Hard offers more bang for the buck. The underrated character actor Richard Crenna (a standout sleazebag in Body Heat), as Rambo's military mentor and staunch defender, is the series' secret weapon, providing some welcome human ballast. --David Chute

Rambo III (Special Edition)

And the hits just keep on coming. Sylvester Stallone, who can't seem to draw flies unless he's playing Rocky Balboa or John Rambo, went back to the Rambo well (or septic system, as it were) to show his well-known solidarity with the Afghan freedom fighters who battled the Soviet army in the 1980s. This time it's personal: his handler, Richard Crenna, is captured by the Evil Empire and so it's up to Rambo to leave his work in a monastery in Southeast Asia (oh, puh-leeze) in order to rescue him from the Ruskies. Ever wonder why the Russians had such a miserable time in Afghanistan? It was because Rambo took them on single-handed and kicked their hammer-and-sickle heinies all the way back to Moscow. Cartoonish action, taken ever so seriously by Stallone, who was working desperately to scrape away the unsightly wax buildup from his reputation. --Marshall Fine

Legionnaire

Exiled to a video-only release when its distributor balked after the flop of Jean-Claude Van Damme's previous film Knock Off, this lavish adventure deserved a chance at theatrical success. Action icon Van Damme recasts himself as a tragic romantic hero in this entertaining old-fashioned adventure with a modern sensibility. "The Muscles from Brussels" is no Brando, but he acquits himself nicely as a cocky boxer who double-crosses a Marseilles mobster and joins the French Foreign Legion when his half-baked plan backfires with tragic consequences. Surrounded by a better than usual cast (including Steven Berkoff as a Teutonic drill sergeant, Jim Carter as the ruthless ganglord, and Nicholas Farrell as a gentleman soldier with a taste for gambling and a dark past), Van Damme's dour performance sometimes gets lost in the colorful characters around him. But that's okay--there's adventure enough to go around and he's willing to share it. The Marseilles scenes evoke a quaint movie past with their smoky bars and shadowy streets, but the film is reborn as an ambitious, stoic platoon drama in the sands of French Morocco. Legionnaire alludes to classic films from Beau Geste to Casablanca to Lawrence of Arabia, but ultimately marches its own macho course, reveling in testosterone-driven heroics and bonding-under-fire while acknowledging the irony of its colonial mission ("We're the intruders," realizes one soldier). It's a calculated risk for Van Damme (who also cowrote and coproduced), but if Legionnaire never quite grasps the epic scope it's reaching for, it remains one of his best films, a handsome, exciting, and surprisingly grim desert adventure. --Sean Axmaker