RAMBO: LAST BLOOD REVIEW
Starring: Sylvester Stallone
Directed By: Adrian Grunberg (Get the Gringo)
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes
Look.You don’t care what I think about this movie if you’re thinking of seeing Rambo: Last Blood.You only want to know one thing.How much carnage is there?The answer is “quite a bit”.You’re going to have to sit through a surprising amount of story to get there.But it delivers EXACTLY what you buy a ticket for.Rambo killing people.
The fifth chapter of Rambo on screen sees Rambo living on a ranch in Arizona training horses and living peacefully.This is presumably the home of his father that we see in the end of 2008’s Rambo film.His father isn’t there, but there is a teenage girl living with him, about to go to college.Her aunt is living with Rambo as well.I’m not sure the specifics of these people’s relationship to each other.I never saw the fourth Rambo movie.I’m not sure if they show up at the end of that movie or if this all new information.I wasn’t confused, but they definitely made it seem like I should know who these people are.
This teenager living with Rambo sneaks off to Mexico to find her real father.She ends up getting kidnapped by a drug cartel.Then Rambo seeks vengeance.Not a lot of dramatic push-pull.Rambo knows what he’s capable of and doesn’t question whether or not the violent ways of his past are the right option.He just acts.Quickly.
Eventually the action leads us to Rambo’s Ranch in Arizona.Rambo prepares for the cartel’s inevitable arrival.In what can only be described as a Home Alone-esque set up.Rambo, played by a 73 year old Sylvester Stallone booby traps his house with violent intentions.In Home Alone, Kevin McAllister rigged his house for comedic intentions, but you often read articles about what would happen if Home Alone were real and a burglar actually got hit in the head with a paint can and had his scalp set ablaze.Rambo: Last Blood sets out to answer a lot of those questions.What would happen if a burglar (or drug cartel member) stepped on not a Micro Machine, but an actual bed of nails?What would happen if a burglar (or drug cartel member) walked into a wall of fire?
The other comparison I can make on this film is Saw.The Saw franchise made its name by setting up elaborate death traps for its actors to get caught in.That’s how this movie ends.With the cartel walking through Rambo’s House of Horrors and getting caught in his elaborate death traps.That is 100% not an exaggeration.
Rambo: Last Blood is best described as straight up murder porn.Horror movies catch a lot of flak for fetishizing violence.Rambo: Last Blood absolutely fetishizes its violence more so than any other movie this year.I laughed a lot at the end of the movie, because it’s such an insane sequence of events.It’s a lot of fun if you can stomach it all.I’m not sure which part is more violent.When Rambo rips a man’s collarbone out with his bare hands, the multiple decapitations, or when Rambo cuts a man’s beating heart out of his chest.All of those things happen in this movie.Not off-screen.They show you everything.
But that’s what you want when you go see a Rambo movie.You want scene after scene of interminable violence.You want Rambo to kill everyone.And this movie is being criticized for targeting drug cartels.First of all, as if there are such nice drug cartels out there.We shouldn’t be offended that drug cartels are the victims, they’re bad people.But the bigger complaint is that Rambo is killing minorities, Mexicans specifically.Well, see the movie.He has every reason to.And secondly, the cartel members lined up for slaughter don’t really get a lot of face time.They don’t really get their chance to deliver a heartfelt monologue.Their either wearing masks and you can’t determine their race or they die so quickly that their race doesn’t matter.They’re just Rambo fodder.Nothing else matters.Oh, and it’s a movie.None of it is real.So calm down.
Let’s not kid ourselves, please.Rambo: Last Blood is a bad movie.It’s terrible.Horrible acting, writing, and everything else.But, again, that’s not what you’re here for.You want death and destruction and Rambo delivers one last time, maybe a little too well.
On a scale of “See It/Stream It/Skip It” – Stream It – Fans of this series will be delighted with what happens even though the movie is terrible.
If you liked Rambo, Saw, or Hostel you might like Rambo: Last Blood.Yes, the violence is that outrageous.
1.5 out of 5 stars for Rambo: Last Blood.