Rambo: Last Blood review

RAMBO: LAST BLOOD: 

SYLVESTER STALLONE’S FINAL OUTING AS THE ICONIC ACTION HERO DISAPPOINTS! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: * out of 4

LIONSGATE

Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: Last Blood

            Sylvester Stallone (Rocky franchise, Demolition Man, The Expendables trilogy) returns as John Rambo in Rambo: Last Blood, the fifth and final installment of the long-running Rambo franchise dating back to First Blood in 1982. While I’ve been mostly indifferent to the Rambo franchise I cannot deny that First Blood is one of the best action movies of all time in the same vein as Die Hard, Aliens, The Road Warrior, and Mad Max: Fury Road, with its over-the-top action sequences, simple premise about one man with a shady past taking on an entire police force, and some legitimate drama completely sold by Stallone’s acclaimed performance. 

            After the critical and commercial success of First Blood, a franchise was inevitable with more focus on action rather than action and drama, kind of like what The Road Warrior is to the original Mad Max. However, the results of the Rambo sequels are polarizing and while each of them offers some unique and exciting action sequences, none of them could really live up to the surprisingly bold storytelling of the first movie which really shouldn’t have worked but it did. 

            I’m not saying all the Rambo sequels are bad, Rambo: First Blood: Part II I consider to be a classic guilty pleasure that’s undeniably flawed but also a lot of fun to watch and the 2008 fourth installment Rambo while my thoughts on the film as a whole are mixed it goes balls to the wall with its action and violence for better or worse it left an impression and felt like a good stopping point for the series.

            But then this comes around, Rambo: Last Blood with Stallone producing and Adrian Grunberg (Get the Gringo,Apocalypto, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) directing to supposedly conclude Rambo’s legacy. There’s been a lot of strange word of mouth regarding this movie, accusations that it’s Pro-Trump and has perceived racism and xenophobia so for the sake of readers I have no intentions of going into political details or opinions and will be judging it as a movie. 

            And as a movie and conclusion to the Rambo franchise especially after Stallone’s acclaimed portrayal of Rocky Balboa in the Creed franchise, Rambo: Last Blood is an unfortunate misfire that tries to bring shimmers of its once poignant and dramatic tone back but ultimately clashes with the over-the-top 80s throwback action sequences causing an inconsistent tone, a bland and predictable story more reminiscent of the Taken franchise than Rambo, lack of variety in action, and a climax so ridiculous that the movie turns into an R-rated version of Home Alone, I’m not kidding.

            Eleven years after the events of the last film, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo (Stallone) has inherited his late father’s horse ranch in Arizona which he manages with his friend Maria (Adriana Barraza-Babel, Drag Me to Hell, Dora and the Lost City of Gold) and her granddaughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal-Matador, Faking It, Stargirl). Gabrielle informs Rambo that a friend of hers across the Mexican border has found her long lost biological father who Rambo warns was abusive to her and her mother. 

            Believing he may have changed, Gabrielle travels to Mexico against Rambo’s wishes to find him but is suddenly captured by enforcers of a drug cartel. Upon hearing the news of Gabrielle’s kidnapping, Rambo comes out of retirement and uses his ruthless combat skills once again to fight off the cartel and rescue her before it’s too late.

            The film also stars Paz Vega (Spanglish, 10 Items or Less, Cuna de lobos (2019)) as Carmen Delgado, Sergio Peris-Mencheta (Resident Evil: Afterlife, Love Ranch, Life Itself (2018)) as Hugo Martinez, Óscar Jaenada (The Losers, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Cantinflas) as Victor Martinez, Joaquín Cosío (Quantum of Solace, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Suicide Squad) as Don Manuel, and Marco de la O (El Chapo) as Miguel.

            Overall, Rambo: Last Blood is a bland, uninspired, and disappointing installment that doesn’t give the once legendary action hero the finale he deserves. The plot doesn’t feel like Rambo at all and more like an unused script for a Taken sequel that somehow ended up in Sylvester Stallone’s hands. 

            Does a young girl getting captured by a crime lord’s drug cartel really make you think of Rambo? No, it doesn’t! When I think of Rambo I think of a guy wearing a bandanna killing bad guys in a forest or a jungle, even with different stories, directors, and tones at least its predecessors still felt like they all exist in the same universe, this feels so far removed from Rambo that I was expecting a cameo from Benicio del Toro from the Sicario movies to show up.

            It’s a shame because the Rambo movies have gotten sillier and more over-the-top as they progressed, and this film tried to bring some drama from the first movie back into the series. If I can praise something about Last Blood is a particular heartbreaking twist in the middle of the movie that I didn’t see coming and was one of the only moments in the film that actually got a genuine reaction out of me, but it’s eventually ruined when the climax turns into an R-rated version of Home Alone with Rambo setting up booby-traps in his barn and tunnels he built underground to slaughter the cartel, which is where most of the action usually associated with Rambo is showcased, gore and all.  

            Throughout most of the movie with the exception of the final battle, the action and violence feel more like violence from a grittier Taken remake and it just isn’t as exciting compared to the other films. While my thoughts on the 2008 Rambo movie are very split, I can at least give it credit that it went balls to the wall crazy with its violence whether or not it worked I’m not sure, but I found it to be a lot more entertaining than this movie. 

            Even with the Rambo/Home Alone mash-up, the action is nothing we haven’t seen already, people getting shot, blown up, sliced, stabbed, etc. that may work as a throwback to the ultra-violent 80s movies from its era. But compared to other recent action movies like the John Wick trilogy, Mad Max: Fury Road, Mission: Impossible: Fallout, and the later Fast & Furious movies breaking new grounds in action movie filmmaking and giving the audience something new and exciting, Last Blood just doesn’t have that creative spark and prefers to waste your time by showcasing the same action sequences you’ve already seen in the other films with little to no variety. 

            If you’re a fan of the series and just want to see how the Rambo franchise ends, you’ll probably get your fill with Last Blood. But for everyone else, it’s just a dated, uninspired, and grisly reminder that it’s time for John Rambo to retire.