Rambo: Last Blood

Rambo: Last Blood is, yes you guessed it, the last movie of the endless Rambo franchise. In fact, this is the fifth movie made. Now, the first in the series ‘First Blood‘ was released almost thirty-seven years before this final outing. First Blood was based on the novel of the same name by David Morrell.

It is a powerful story of the struggles faced by war veterans fitting back into society. In particular the struggles of one ex green beret, John Rambo who is treated like scum by the local Police of a small American town. That is until he is pushed too far and flips into survival mode, using all of his skills as a highly trained killing machine.

It's fair to say, that the first film of the Rambo franchise carried some credibility and does have a reasonable back story. But, the release of ‘Rambo: First Blood Part II' was a total shift away from any credible storyline in favor of excess. In fact, it was famous for the highest kill rate of any film made at the time. However, the film was so successful that it hurled Sylvester Stallone into the stratosphere of superstardom. And spawned a mass of copycat films, changing the world of action movies forever.

For me, the last of the Rambo films that still placed John Rambo into anything like a remotely credible situation was ‘Rambo III'. By the time ‘Rambo IV' was made in 2008, things were getting a little too far fetched, but it was still reasonably entertaining as a Rambo movie. So when Rambo: Last Blood was first marketed to the world, it's fair to say that loyal fans got generally quite hyped up about it, but is it any good?

Well, the answer is bold and blunt, NO! In fact, I am going to be bold enough to say that Rambo: Last Blood should never have been made. First off, there is no essence of John Rambo the soldier in this film at all. Just a brutally disturbed old man who is living with two other people on a ranch in the middle nowhere. There are no tanks, helicopters, rocket launchers and there is no mission what so ever.

Instead, this is replaced with a xenophobic portrayal of evil Mexicans. They capture the young girl who lives at his ranch. These drug-taking, misogynistic evil Mexicans force her into a dark world of prostitution. They treat all of the women in their services like dogs. Even, the girl's Mexican father who she had taken the trip to see is an evil lowlife. In fact, there is not one good Mexican portrayed in the story. So, when taking this into account, along with the vivid imagery of the Mexican border wall, I would suspect that President Trump would be a big fan.

You guessed it, John Rambo saves the day. Well no actually, he doesn't even do that. What actually happens is a mash-up of Taken and Home Alone. But with the most ridiculous brutality that you could ever witness on screen. It seems that the idea here was to cross as many lines as possible. But it goes way too far and loses any endearing features for the hero what so ever. This old John Rambo is just so dark that it's difficult to place him as the hero.

Ok, I may be being as brutal as the Hero here. But, let's be straight, Stallone looks terrible in this film. The directing is awful and there is not one member of the cast that has the capacity to pull it out of the dirt. The storyline is none existent, packed full of generalized characters and feels like a campaign for those who hate Mexicans.

If there is one good thing about Rambo: Last Blood, that would be that it is the last Rambo film. Plus it's not too long either, thankfully. This is quite simply shocking for all of the wrong reasons and is just a terrible movie. Even, the creator of the John Rambo character David Morrell tweeted his disgust at the outcome. In fact, John Rambo actually died in the original story and after this film he is well and truly done for.