Rambo: First Blood is one of the most iconic action films ever made and beneath all its action spectacle is a story about PTSD, the treatment of soldiers returning from Vietnam, and a man who wants nothing but to be left alone, who in the words of Bruce Springsteen has "ended up like a dog that's been beat too much" and is reacting to a hostile and uncaring world in the only way he knows how, with sheer brutal violence.
It is a great film and features a surprisingly emotive performance from Stallone, who honestly shocked me with just how good he is in it. I honestly think its a pretty flawless movie.
Rambo: First Blood part II, right, lets clear a few things up, this is not first blood part II, not even close. It's a film that completely abandons all of the nuance and complexity of Rambo's character in the original in favor of an ironically pro-american message and focus.
This time around Rambo is pulled out of prison to go back to Vietnam, why?, because he's the best , that's why.
I think the film is decent for what it is, its an entertaining 80's action movie with big guns and bigger explosions and all the kills are solid. It is so different from the original though its almost a completely different genre entirely, I have a feeling its going to get progressively more stupid from here but overall i did like the movie, I just didn't find it quite as compelling or as unique as that original film.
Rambo III, the one where John Rambo helps out the Mujahhideen, yep, you heard that right, Rambo, the all-American hero, fights alongside the Taliban in this one and you know what, I prefer it to the second film. The plot is a straight forward rescue mission where Stallone has to go to Afghanistan to save Sam Trautman, his commanding officer from the original as he has been taken hostage by you guessed it, evil Russians.
I think its a better story than the second film as the opening is far more in line with the character of John Rambo from the original film, here he is reluctant to go to war again and has chosen to live a peaceful life living on a monastery, paying his keep with manual labor for the monks. This makes sense for the character, he wasn't someone who wanted to go off and fight a war again, he just wanted to be left in peace. Well, obviously that doesn't last very long and before you know it he's back to blowing people up with exploding arrows.
Overall its a ridiculous, over the top action movie with a few extremely silly and fun kills, also its hilarious that its essentially dedicated to the Taliban in its closing credits.
Rambo (2008), How on earth is the fourth installment in the franchise nearly as good as the original film. It feels like Stallone chose to write and direct this film himself as he wanted to bring the series back to its roots and what made the original great in the first place. Rambo is a man haunted by his past who knows that the only thing that gives his life any meaning is killing for a cause.
The two sequels before it while fun are completely over the top 80's cheese fests, here there is a disturbing realism to the war crimes depicted in the film that adds some real weight to it, it is unflinching when approaching the subject of genocide, and to that point, this is the bloodiest, most violent and brutal Rambo film in the series so far.
I was very surprised at how good this film was. It really is a great action movie.
Rambo: Last Blood, so here we are at the end of the Rambo marathon, this film receives a lot of hate online and i don't think it warrants it at all, it's not a bad movie, in fact I enjoyed all of it but I do think there were elements here that were so strong that if a few changes were made it could be a great entry in the series though as it stands its a pretty solid movie.
Its arguably the most personal of all five films as it revolves around an aged Rambo going out to find the people who abducted his niece and sold her to human traffickers. Here's where i think people aren't happy with it, for the most part it doesn't feel like a Rambo movie and more like a hard boiled detective story, but honestly I was there for it. It didn't pull its punches and was dark, depressing and brutal and the emotional moments landed for me.
The only things it needed to improve upon was its ending and central villain, who is indistinguishable from the rest of the pieces of shit Rambo dispatches in the movie and it ends far too abruptly, i needed a little more from those two things and i think if they committed to this being Rambo's last film having him die taking out the cartel would have been a fitting way to go.
All that said, I love how gory this movie is, I like that it was willing to go to some dark places and that it offered something different from the previous four films, but like i said I do however think it could have been improved in a few minor ways, to grade it up to being a great movie instead of just a good one.
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