Action hero Smackdown: The Bride vs. Rambo!
ACTION SMACKDOWN!
This week, it’s the mysteriously named “Bride” versus the absurdly named J.J. Rambo. ONe is synonymous with weddings, the other with sweaty meat! Who will stand victorious? Tune in!
Let’s get it on like Marvin Gaye.
RobbieRobTown:
In this week’s gripping epic, we have John J. Rambo (The “J stands for “John”, or maybe both J’s stand for “J. Jonah”) vs. The Bride. We might know “The Bride” best in her titular role as the bride of Frankenstein in the gripping 1985 remake of the “classic” Bride of Frankenstein. Seriously, google “The Bride”. The Bride features Sting (Yeah, Sting) as Dr. Frankenstein, who has finally created the perfect woman: Eva, portrayed by the inimitable Jennifer Beals of Flashdance fame. Perhaps you remember Jennifer Beals as an apprenticed and trained TIG welder who gives up a highly lucrative career in a complex and specialized form of welding (used most commonly on non ferrous metals and also in aerospace engineering), and also abandons a gig moonlighting as a mediocre, but non-drug-addicted stripper to become a dancer. The next time someone asks you about the plausibility of any element of the Lord of the Rings, you ask them to explain Flashdance.
In any case, I wouldn’t call Jennifer Beals an action hero, so I’m ready to call this one early for Rambo.
What’s that?
Oh, Beatrix Kiddo? Oh.
Let me come at you this way. A cubic foot of topsoil weighs about 78 pounds. Let us assume (though we know this figure to be highly variable and dependent on local conditions) that a grave is six feet deep. Let us now assume that a coffin is, roughly, 24″ wide, 18″ high, and 6′ long. Resting on the bottom of a six foot trench, the volume of topsoil resting atop the coffin would be about 54 cubic feet. If one cubic foot of topsoil weighs 78 pounds, and Dearest Fans, please let me know if I am doing my math wrong (I’m terrible with volume calculations), I get 4,212 pounds of dirt atop your average grave.
Any chick who, after being in a coma, can flick the lid off of a coffin, with her fingertips, from beneath over 2 fucking tons of dirt is going to win any fight.
You: But if you claw the dirt into the grave, and backfill as you go, you don’t have to lift the entire weight of the dirt!
Me: Yeah, but in the movie she basically punches through. Eat it.
You: I recall some clawing
Me: Well, I recall being happy once, but it doesn’t mean it matters to anyone.
You: Jesus, Emo Kid, cheer up.
Me: (cutting myself) No!
Winner: The Bride
Loser: Dudes in headbands.
Tbinns
Before we proceed with the actual fight, there are two things that need to be brought up.
ONE: Does The Bride have Super Powers?
My friend Trevor once said that Quentin Tarantino is less like a director and more like a club dj, ony instead of sampling other peoples music…he samples other peoples movies. In his effort to be stylistically true to the often ridiculous Kung Fu movies of the 70’s, he has deliberately thrown verisimilitude to the wind when creating Kill Bill. This is why it would APPEAR that Ms. Kiddo has super powers. While I can see where an argument could be made, the fact is all of her “Superpowers” come from training. Like Batman’s. Batman does equally unlikely things with no powers, so I say if Batman falls in the unpowered category, than so must The Bride. Therefore no disqualification, the fight is on.
TWO : Tbinnsing Uma Thurman. Yeah. I can’t do it. She weirds me out a little. There is an unsettling hint of Gollum in that face.
In the other corner we have John Rambo…who would like it known for the record that he did not draw first blood. What he did do was bitchslap that annoying guy from CSI Miami so kudos to him for that.
“Careful….we wouldn’t want you to cut yourself…” (ASSWHOOP!!!) YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
John Rambo is synonymous with action hero. He takes on entire police departments/Leftover Vietcong Armies /Russians (Or was that in Rocky IV?) all by himself. Not an easy guy to beat. So let’s go to the tale of the tape. Rambo is stronger, good with knives, guns, bows and arrows, guns that are meant to be mounted on aircraft, dynamite arrows etc. He was trained by the Green Berets to be a killing machine.
The Bride has survived being shot, willed herself out of coma induced paralysis, has beaten the deadliest assassins in the world, oh and taken out 300 men with nothing but a sword and a bad attitude, not to mention punching her way out of a grave. Kinda makes shooting guys with dynamite arrows look like the pussy way out, doesn’t it? She was trained by the legendary Pei Mei to destroy her opponents and to use chopsticks when her hands are very sore.
So what’s on the platform? Well a Hanzi sword for sure, but what about Rambo. I’m going to go with his trusty knife. I know he uses every weapon under the sun, but the knife is to Rambo what the utility belt is to Batman. He even has a do it yourself surgery kit in there. Knife sword buzzer goes.
Aaand three minutes later John Rambo is dead. Why you ask? Because even though he CAN do hand to hand, The Bride does it better. She’s faster, so even if she decides NOT to engage him in hand to hand, she’d get to the weapons first. He’s stronger…sure, but she’s not likely to get herself into a situation where that comes into play. If it was a gun fight…oh yeah definitely Rambo. But it’s not, so cancel that Rambo 5 : The Ramboening sequel.
Sorry John, here comes the Bride.
Winner: Beatrix Kiddo
Admin_Rock
Okay, so here’s the skinny. I like Tarantino. I think he’s capable of great work. I also think his ego shoots him in the foot a LOT. His last film, “Inglorious Basterds” had some of the best work he’s ever done. Go back and rewatch some of the conversations between the farmer and the German, or the scene in the cafe with the projectionist. Well paced, tense, great! Then there’s every scene with the “Basterds”. Almost without fail, bad. Unnecessary, cloying, dull.
Which takes us to Kill Bill. Hated. This. Movie. 4 hours of bridging to get us to exactly what we expect. yawn. I remember liking the scene with the two women fighting in the suburbs. I could go back and describe it better, but I’m not sitting through the rest of that overwrought mess to do it.
The Rambo films are not exactly brilliant cinema either. I watched the most recent one a while back, and I remember it being the most violent film I’ve seen in a long time. I see a lot of films, this one was more violentery.
For me, this comes down to a skilled close combat expert against a skilled close combat expert. Oh, except the second guy also knows how to shoot every gun ever made. And that’s where this one becomes pretty damn clear. The fight starts, they both scramble for weapons. The Bride gets her fancy sword and lives for about another 30 seconds, as Rambo straps in behind a Browning M2HB.
Game Over.
Winner: Rambo
Decision: The Bride
So The Bride Moves on, completing our first round. The matchups for the Quarter Finals:
Indiana Jones vs Ellen Ripley
The Man With No Name vs Han Solo
John McClane vs James Bond
Beatrix Kiddo vs Jason Bourne
Comments, shaming, and emasculation await below!!!!
