Directed by:
Adrian GrunbergCinematography:
Brendan GalvinComposer:
Brian TylerCast:
Sylvester Stallone, Paz Vega, Joaquín Cosio, Yvette Monreal, Óscar Jaenada, Sheila Shah, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Adriana Barraza, Jessica Madsen, Owen Davis (more)VOD (1)
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Almost four decades after he drew first blood, John Rambo is back. Now, Rambo must confront his past and unearth his ruthless combat skills to exact revenge in a final mission. (Lionsgate US)
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Reviews (11)
Eighty minutes of tired old-man melancholy without a drop of action and fifteen minutes of a sped-up Home Alone ripoff. This is, in short, Rambo: Last Blood. Did anyone actually want that? After a high-quality, action-packed and especially ballbusting fourth movie, which should have ended the series with all its dignity intact, came this practically unjustifiable lullaby, built on a banal script and forced emotions for one-dimensional supporting character shoehorned into an established series, who the audience is expected to feel for. A forgettable sequel with ugly CGI effects and a picture undeserving of the character John Rambo.
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It’s not too surprising that Stallone has never been able to understand that he simply cannot replicate one of the greatest successes of his career. The name Rambo has very little significance in relation to one fictional character. Its cultural capital and iconic nature are derived solely from Rambo: First Blood Part II and its association with the waning days of the Cold War. Stallone’s tenacious effort to continue the franchise’s box-office success was still endearingly entertaining in the third instalment thanks to the camp dimension of that film. The fourth one was just tiresome and toxic with it old man’s stubbornness and toxic conservativeness. Because Stallone doesn’t have any sense of humour or self-reflection, the title of the parody flick Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping describes his career. Like Sly, unfortunately, some of his viewers still hope to at least dip a toe into the old waters. To this day, I still remember the wearying disappointment creeping through the screening room at the cinema. It’s true that the particular screening was on the day of the premiere as part of a double feature with the iconic First Blood Part II at the Aero cinema in Prague. The futile digital effects and the drawn-out ideologically focused melodrama about the need to protect the US southern border were downright off-putting for the viewers looking forward to bombastic action, which finally came after 90 gruelling minutes with truly devastating sadistic explicitness, so the irritated audience welcomed it with a clamorous roar of relief. However, that doesn’t change the fact that all of the other sequels only diminish the legacy and significance of Rambo: First Blood Part II as a pop-culture milestone. On the other hand, that’s a good thing, because we now live in a different era and a different world. It’s just a shame that Stallone still doesn’t understand that.
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I like the way Sylvester Stallone has worked with Rambo and made him into a regular tragic hero over the years, and I saw something almost Shakespearean in his thinking and actions this time. Seriously. When he warns his niece about finding her estranged father, he talks about pure evil and how there's no getting rid of it... Of course, it's obvious to everyone what happens next. But it's knowing it that makes this scene so powerful, because we see Rambo suffer without exactly being cut with a knife, and we realize that he may have come home and is living at home, but he's not really home. From this perspective, the first part of the film (which I so often read is soap operatic, boring, long, drawn out, and all over the place) is extremely important and, more importantly, interesting. Then, when it comes to Rambo's trip to Mexico and the chain is broken, it's inevitably and maximally brutal at best, because no one has ever hurt Rambo before like this time and he's going to pay it back in kind (the showdown with the main villain shows that if there's one thing Rambo doesn't enjoy, it's metaphors). So if you're just expecting the final carnage and don't care about John Rambo the character at all, stay home and don't spoil the movie's rating.
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I gave this a slightly higher rating because it’s just the kind of film you make a daughter watch if she refuses to do what she’s told… This brutal Rambo epilogue has a long, unsurprising exposition, a classic western structure and an aging legend that can still deliver the goods. Direct, hard-hitting. The climax in John’s tunnel of surprises is really bloody and the annihilation of the evil Mexicans is heartwarming... Hehehe.
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Rambo could actually choose between two genres. Either following in the footsteps of the first installment, it could have been a drama about war trauma or the godless action carnage of an unbreakable machine along the lines of all the other installments. Except it doesn't have a second option because of the protagonist's limitations, and it's too stupid for the first one. Because of the protagonist's limitations. Sylvester Stallone is one of Hollywood's most annoying stars. His incessant need for self-presentation, dabbling in scripting and production, grandiose declarations and the gloriola of his own supposed wise old man's modesty twisted the entirety of Rambo: Last Blood into a very agonizingly twisted corpse that is incapable of meeting even the simplest expectations of an action movie. The first twenty minutes are a celebration of honest work, in which we watch a sweaty Stallone exercise a horse, a sweaty Stallone hammer a nail, a sweaty Stallone spin some wheels, or a sweaty Stallone forge an iron bar. There are no action scenes in the film, just a bunch of shots of the protagonist hitting someone with a hammer or a knife. The final confusion, where we watch fifty people casually walking down identical corridors and randomly falling into some traps, is the most disturbing film finale of the year. Most importantly, please make this 'old-school and honest' spectacle all animated next time. Who's supposed to watch those digital flames and funny pools of blood?
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