Buy it... if you're driven by Jerry Goldsmith's relentless action of the 1980's, with outstanding adaptations of his themes from First Blood serving as highlights of the sequel score.

Avoid it... if you have previously been annoyed by Goldsmith's mid-80's scores that feature extremely harsh tones in the prominent mix of their synthetic rhythms.

Goldsmith

Rambo: First Blood Part II: (Jerry Goldsmith) Co-written by James Cameron and Sylvester Stallone, the 1985 sequel to First Blood would be a successful enough profit vehicle to immediately launch the production of another sequel. The original tale had been one of ultimate psychological loss, and although John Rambo is not killed in the film as he was in the book, he is a man for whom solitude is his destiny. The two sequels continue this theme, for his narrow focus and lack of friend or family makes him an easy killing machine. The Russians would be his enemies in the sequels, and he blows through them like a mechanized terminator, suffering from predictable betrayals, captures, and escapes along the way. His injuries don't stop him, his weapons never run out of ammunition, and the badguys never stop pursuing. As more of a straight action film than the first one, Rambo: First Blood Part II presented composer Jerry Goldsmith with the opportunity to take his much more varied score for First Blood and adapt its central themes into a far more listenable and straight-laced action explosion. Both sequel scores by Goldsmith would have this characteristic, placing some token ethnicity into the equation while faithfully following the action on screen with nonstop and frightfully enjoyable bombast. The ethnic elements and sound quality of Rambo III would be superior to those of First Blood Part II, but Goldsmith's handling of the original themes is astonishingly intelligent and satisfying in the second installment. There were essentially two primary themes for John Rambo himself in First Blood. The first was the emotionally beaten "Long Road Home" theme that opened the film as Rambo sought out his remaining war buddy; its acoustic guitar and string performance is as melancholy as any Goldsmith has ever written. Despite truly being the primary theme of the film, it is eventually supplanted by the straight action theme that most people associate with Rambo, with dense brass and militaristic percussion serving the war machine wide of Rambo's mentality.

A motif that runs through First Blood is a low range, five-note "sneaking theme" that dominates the latter scenes when Rambo is planning the demise of the small town. It makes a few appearances in First Blood Part II, performed by synthesizer at the end of "Stories," but doesn't have much of a role given that the film is oriented towards more confrontation and less sneakiness. The only completely new themes for First Blood Part II are a slight oriental motif for Rambo's oriental accomplice --one that is barely developed enough to make an impact-- and a slow, ominous, descending, and somewhat stereotypical brass theme for the Russian commander that does a fair amount of musical battle with Rambo's themes in the latter half of the score. While First Blood Part II may seem rather obvious in its movements and adaptation, Goldsmith's manipulation of the "Long Road Home" theme is nothing short of brilliant, mutating it into two separate themes that divide Rambo's psyche. When tending wounds or bonding with other characters, Rambo is treated to the sensitivity of the original performance, though without the guitar. In both "Stories" and "Ambush," heartbreaking performances of this theme are performed in full by solo instruments. More intriguing, however, is Goldsmith's translation of the theme into its precursor, the war-torn version of agony. It devolves back into the form it would have taken while Rambo was first in Vietnam, masking itself as a dark hero's theme. This hero theme would be the new title theme for First Blood Part II and would coexist perfectly with the already-establish action theme from the first film. In fact, Goldsmith would provide a surprising range of emotion with this new hero theme variation. The most strident of these can be heard in "Betrayed," in which Goldsmith extends the theme over a slower, more deliberate rhythm as Rambo is betrayed by his American commander and allowed to be captured by the Russians. The resolve conveyed in the pure brass performances during this cue are indeed a highlight of the entire score. Overall, the sustained action in First Blood Part II makes the score a remarkably cohesive listening experience.

	1999 Album: Only $9.99

The cue "Escape from Torture" would make such strong use of both of Rambo's action theme variants and relentless percussive rhythms that the cue would be spliced twice into Rambo III (with marginal results; the editing of cue fragments to match scene length was a bit awkward). The role of electronics over the three scores did change dramatically, with First Blood Part II featuring the most intrusive synthetic elements of all. By 1985, Goldsmith was using synthetic rhythms extensively, though if you recall scores like Legend, Gremlins, and Baby from that time, the tone of those electronics was often quite sharp. The same is abundantly true in First Blood Part II, with many of Goldsmith's electronic sounds extremely grating in their harsh tones, especially when mixed as they are at the forefront. When they perform the oriental motifs towards the first half of the score, they barely make an impact, but in "Main Titles" and in the later action cues, these synthetic samples can be one of the only annoying aspects of First Blood Part II. On album, the score was a very early CD release by Varèse Sarabande in 1985, and that album disappeared from the market like many of the label's other initial digital offerings. In 1999, the Silva Screen label resurrected the score, cleaned up the sound quality as much as possible, and added 15 minutes to a re-release. Purists may say that the additional material is inconsequential, and that the listening experience of the Varèse album is better. To an extent that's true, but no album from First Blood Part II would be complete without the outstanding "Village Raid/Helicopter Fight" cue (mislabeled on the packaging), five minutes of Goldsmith action at its best. The sound quality is indeed improved, but not strikingly so; the third score would easily offer the best sound of the three. Both albums would end with the "Peace in Our Life" song performed by Stallone's brother, an unnecessary light rock piece that replaced an end credit suite specifically written by Goldsmith for the film (though parts of the song would interpolate the score's themes). In the end, First Blood Part II is an outstanding action score held back only by its slow start and occasionally obnoxious electronics. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.32 (in 133,461 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.