It's official. Movie icon heroes - Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) - are back in their respective sequels to the hottest movie franchises that they've made those many years ago - "INDIANA JONES" TRILOGY and "THE FIRST BLOOD/RAMBO" TRILOGY. Even though time has indeed passed, age has not stopped these two from making another action sequel to the movies that made them very synonymous with the American culture. And they will both headline the summer movie line-up next year in the movie theaters. Also, the two actors are above the age of 60, well past their prime now. There seems to be no signs of slowing down. For Harrison Ford, his last film "Firewall," a cyberspace-related suspense thriller, didn't fare too well in the box office only generating a few million dollars. However, it still shows that Harrison is tailor-made for all-out action. And with "Indiana Jones 4" already on (teaming up with producer Spielberg and Lucas), he's ready to prove to the world again that he's one major powerhouse in the box office and Hollywood since his glory days of the "INDIANA JONES" trilogy (aka "Raiders of the Lost Ark"/"The Temple of Doom/"The Last Crusade") , The "STAR WARS" trilogy (playing the favorite character of Han Solo in "A New Hope"/"The Empire Strikes Back"/"The Return of the Jedi"), the JACK RYAN movies (i.e."Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger), and his unforgettable role of the kick-a** president in "Air Force One." Can he repeat his success alongside stars Jim Broadbent, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt and Shia LaBeouf? It is certainly possible for one Harrison Ford ... For Stallone, his career also dwindled a bit making low-budget straight-to-DVD movies for a couple of years. His only smash hit in-between was "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over" playing the infamous, cheesy character "Toymaker" (and his many clones of sorts) opposite Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Salma Hayek, Alexa Vega, and Daryl Sabara. But we all know that a kiddie movie like this was #1 because it was already synonymous with kids in its previous movies - and not about Stallone, alone. He also appeared in another movie called "Driven" but its probably so forgotten now. However, there was that beloved character he created that never left him: "ROCKY." He thought he correctly bidded farewell to ROCKY BALBOA and the ROCKY series in the 1990s but he feels now that the ending wasn't right. With low box office results and criticism from some critics and the public, it was obvious - they didn't liked "ROCKY V." The idea of bringing back the character of ROCKY was always on Stallone's mind, but it was never brought to fruition until he published part of the new script on his magazine "Sly." And after those many months and years of the hero ROCKY BALBOA in limbo, he has returned once more for one more round - this time having the movie titled under his character's first and last name. Stallone carried the production from Los Angeles, Las Vegas and to his character's hometown of Philadelphia. In the new movie "ROCKY BALBOA", Stallone starred opposite "ROCKY" regulars Burt Young and Tony Burton, as well as bringing back an original character he fought from the first film of the series. The only drawback to this was that Talia Shire (Adrian) could not be in it because Stallone wrote the beloved character to die from "woman's cancer." However, there were new faces as well - Geraldine Hughes (playing "Marie") and Milo Ventimiglia (playing his son "Rocky, Jr./Robert") - both playing important classic, key characters in the franchise. The other star is real-boxer Antonio Tarver (playing Rocky's opponent "Mason Dixon"). The $25 million movie production resulted in box office success last December surpassing it's budget and meeting critical and public praise. It also renewed the interest in the entire "Rocky" franchise to a whole new generation as well as rekindling ties with the older audiences (like me, at age 32). With "ROCKY BALBOA" becoming Stallone's greenlight to stardom once again, he is ready to put another hero (John Rambo) back-to-work after so long - in a new film called "JOHN RAMBO" (yet named again after the character). The new $50 budgeted project that is currently finishing production has already garnered a lot of hype with the help of internet browsers thanks in large part to Stallone's good pal Harry Knowles' site, AintItCoolNews.com (in which he helped uploaded a 3-minute teaser of the new "JOHN RAMBO" movie there). The results is overwhelming - up to over 800,000 downloads. However, this isn't the JOHN RAMBO that everyone was familiar with for those many years in "First Blood","Rambo First Blood Part 2", and "Rambo III." We go deeper with him now and get more depth to the character, more than ever before. Plus, there are very graphic, intense killing/execution scenes that can raise a lot of eyebrows and perhaps make you vomit and throw up if you're not brave enough to see it. Despite that, "JOHN RAMBO" shows promise despite it's lack of starpower (besides the awesome Julie Bentz who is smokin' hot!) ... In conclusion, the heroes are back and better than ever! We will have to see which one of them will emerge victorious in the box office. Will either one of them win OR will there be another movie that's going to take them down? All of this, to be decided in the summer of 2008. It's the return of THE Movie Icon Heroes.
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