An Outbreak of Rambomania

Sylvester Stallone starts Hollywood's summer with a bang

Beads of sweat glisten, pectoral muscles ripple, veins bulge in steamy close- up. They call him "a pure fighting machine," this glum-faced superhero with the Charles Atlas body. He has been sent on a daring mission to Viet Nam, a land that just a few years ago the nation was trying to forget. Improbably -- or maybe all too probably -- he has become America's newest pop hero. His name: Rambo.

Rambo is, of course, Sylvester Stallone's latest cinematic creation, a brooding Viet Nam veteran who unleashes destruction in the summer's first blockbuster hit, Rambo: First Blood Part II. In this...

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