Rambo - Last Blood (2019)

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“I haven’t changed. I just keep a lid on it.”

Stallone. John Rambo. The (maybe) final chapter in a forty year movie franchise.


Rambo - Last Blood (which is a lot of words, so we’ll just call it RLB), is the bookend to a five film series going back to the 1982 Rambo - First Blood. With stops in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Burma-Thailand, and Mexico, it has been a violent travelogue of America’s and the world’s most troubled spots. Its latest and probably final stop brings former Marine Medal of Honor Winner John Rambo home to Arizona…for at least 30 minutes.

As the latest issue of the living comic book that is Rambo opens, John appears to have finally found some peace. For most of the last decade he has been living in Arizona with his close friend, Maria (Adriana Barraza from Thor and a lot of more serious films), helping her raise her granddaughter, Gabriela (Yvette Monreal - Stargirl). Maria and Rambo’s relationship is never really explored. It it close but appears to be platonic…which is sort of disappointing, as an “age appropriate” romance between her and Stallone would have been fun to watch…well, until the bullets start flying.

Despite progress, Rambo isn’t quiet all there yet. He appears to be experiencing some level of PTSD (which was what the very first Rambo film was really about), but manages to keep level through the perfectly normal activity of digging a massive Vietnamese War-style tunnel complex under his ranch…and forging knives, spears, and other normal farm implements.

Still, things seem to be good for John until Gabriela discovers that her long estranged father, Don Miguel (Joaquín Cosio - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) just happens to live in an unnamed Tijuanaesque town just across the border. Gabriela decides to meet her father, triggering a series of events that result in a whole lot of death, dismemberment, and trips to Mexican strip clubs and brothels.

We won’t spoil the details of the rest of the movie, but it is typical Rambo fare: bad things happen to good people and John Rambo takes it upon himself to exact justice.

So two questions:

Is this any good? And is it Really the last Rambo film?

Rambo has always been a “love it or hate it” series and how you view this movie will depend a lot on how you feel about the character and earlier films. Stallone’s portrayal of the character is as good as it has ever been and the supporting characters are all solid. Monreal does a particularly good job with what she’s given, while Barraza is probably the best performer in the movie. Paz Vega (Acts of Vengeance), who plays a Mexican journalist, is ok but is really wasted filling the role of Rambo’s “just maybe in a different world” not quite love interest / enabler.

The story is good for what it is and moves fast enough to fit the 89 minutes run time. And the cinematography is competent, if not earth shattering. The violence in this edition was, however, really brutal and graphic. A Rambo movie without violence is like a Big Movie Blog review without at least one snarky aside. But this was something else. While not cartoonish like in Turner & Dale vs. Evil, or Walking Dead gory, there was an intimacy and rage in the acts that left me more queasy than I expected.

So is it really the last Rambo movie?

I hope not.

I don’t say that as a big Rambo fan. The truth is, I lean more toward “hating” the series than “loving” it. But the franchise, and Stallone, have reached a point where it is now possible to use John Rambo as something other than a guy firing explosive arrows. If I could script the next Rambo film I’d take a page from Creed and use Stallone as a supporting character in someone else’s story: perhaps a story with Rambo finally getting help at the Veterans Administration and interacting with - and learning from - veterans of American’s more recent wars. An exchange between the 1980s Soviet-killing Cold Warrior and a recently returned Afghanistan War vet could be fascinating.

BMB script ideas aside, the movie does leave room for a Rambo return, ending with John sitting on a rocking chair, reflecting (though some cool film clips from all the previous Rambo films) his life over the last forty years…before he literally rides off into the sunset.

This may be the final Rambo film…but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Three out of Five Exploding Arrows.

🏹🏹🏹

So which camp are you in on the Rambo movies? Love ‘em or hate ‘em? Which is your favorite?



Thank you! I`ll watch it



Welcome to the human race...
My opinion of the series as a whole is that First Blood is the only genuinely good one because it actually has some substance behind it and actually manages to play its characters' violence for dramatic effect, which is only diluted as the sequels get more wrapped up in making Rambo into a semi-reluctant interventionist and lose interest in trying to mine any serious emotional content from their plots beyond giving him a basic motivation to keep the plot going. Last Blood manages to be the worst because it pretty much gives up on almost anything that makes Rambo unique (he doesn't have a mullet or a bandanna) and wedges him into a Taken rip-off that can't make up its mind about how seriously it wants to take itself (and even when it comes to Rambo getting retribution it picks a weird grab-bag of gratuitous torture, off-screen deaths for major characters, and borderline serial killer antics with that house-of-horrors ending). That's without mentioning the questionable usage of Mexicans as antagonists, but I suppose that's just part and parcel of the series by now.
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
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Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I want to see it, but also do not want to because I am afraid how much it's probably going to suck. I read that the movie Homefront (2013), was originally a Rambo script that was retooled to an original character. But if you watch the trailer for Last Blood, it looks similar to Homefront, so did they just decide to make the script into a Rambo movie afterall, even though it was already retooled into a different movie before?



I want to see it, but also do not want to because I am afraid how much it's probably going to suck. I read that the movie Homefront (2013), was originally a Rambo script that was retooled to an original character. But if you watch the trailer for Last Blood, it looks similar to Homefront, so did they just decide to make the script into a Rambo movie afterall, even though it was already retooled into a different movie before?
Almost.
They wrote the script for Rambo 4, being about JR going up against the Cartel to rescue his niece...

Rambo 4 then ended up using a different script with JR being in Burma and fighting alongside the Karen People and rescuing a bunch of Missionaries.

The original Cartel/Niece script was retooled into Homefront.

That same script was then reversed back into a Rambo script, and used on Rambo 5.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Oh okay. Well the only Rambo sequel that I think is good is Rambo III. But I can check this one out maybe.



It's been a long time since I last saw First Blood so I can't compare it with others (I remember it being good, though). Of the sequels, the 4th film is my favorite. I like what it does with the character and the over-the-top violence is great, too. 2nd film is quite entertaining as well but in a campier '80s way. 3rd and 5th films are the weakest of the bunch (maybe I prefer the 5th a bit but it's a tough choice).
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Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I haven't seen the 5th, but I'm surprised a lot of people say the 4th sequel is the best and the 3rd is the weakest, because for me, it's been the opposite. The over the top violence in fourth one just came off as too over the top, like they were trying too hard. But it could also look too over the top, because it looked like all CGI, instead of practical blood splatter effects, like the previous movies. Plus the 4th one feels like a repeat of the 3rd one, with the plot having similar beats. So why is the 4th one the best, if it copies the plot of what is thought of to be the weakest one?



Welcome to the human race...
I think people just dug the violence - these are mostly action movies, after all, and Rambo being much more extreme in this regard than its predecessors (while also stripping down on things like plot) allowed it to leave a stronger impression.