Rambo: Last Blood is a strange beast. I’m not even sure where to begin with this. I feel like the Rambo series has been pretty uneven, at best. The first one is the only truly amazing movie, while the rest are varying degrees of good, and even the better ones are sometimes good for completely different reasons. Anyway, this is to say that I was never really sure what I wanted out of this series. I never really wanted a fifth movie, but I also wasn’t complaining about getting one. The last installment (2008’s Rambo) seemed kind of final to me. It showed us Rambo at an older age, and kind of brought him back full circle. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Rambo: Last Blood, but it certainly wasn’t what we ended up getting.

In a lot of ways, this installment feels like the least Rambo of all of the Rambo movies, which is interesting considering that it’s meant to be the final installment. There’s no real story of war or PTSD found in this one, which is basically what this entire series has been about. Instead, Last Blood continues on from the ending of Rambo, where our title character decided to finally go back home to the US and start a life again. We fast forward now more than a decade later here, where Rambo has been living on a ranch in Arizona, where he takes care of his niece, who is just graduating high school. He tries to be protective of his niece, but a wrench is thrown into that when she one day decides to go to Mexico to look for her real father. As is customary in a movie like this, she soon winds up getting kidnapped and taken into a prostitution/sex trafficking ring. All of this propels the story forward so that Rambo has an excuse to do what he does best against a whole organization of bad guys. Like I said, it’s definitely a much different direction for the series, being more closely related with something like Taken than First Blood.

I bring up how different of a movie this is mainly to inform you of what expectations to have going into it. If you’re looking for a rehash or continuation of Rambo’s storylines, then on that basis alone Last Blood might disappoint you. However, if you’re okay with having a basic “dad action movie” where you watch Sylvester Stallone take on a bunch of bad guys…well, then, this is actually pretty worth your time, in my opinion.

I feel like I should also mention the huge critic/audience divide on this one, since I feel this also plays into expectations. While these things can easily change anytime, at the current time of this writing, Rambo: Last Blood has a critic score of 28% on Rotten Tomatoes, and an audience score of 84%. This makes it the worst Rambo film according to critics, and the second best one (being only a percentage behind the first movie) according to audiences. Why is this? Well, I think one factor is what I already talked about…this movie really isn’t interested in exploring any kind of deep story like First Blood did, and so this is usually a turn-off for critics. It’s focused on being a good action movie first and foremost, and so that’s why it might resonate more with audiences.

However, another big factor I’ve noticed by looking at critic reviews is that there are a lot of accusations being thrown at Last Blood for being “xenophobic” or “racist” purely because of its villains being Mexicans. I won’t get too much into personal politics, but I find this to be ludicrous. Each Rambo movie has had a different ethnicity for its villains, since…you know, each movie has taken place in a different country. There’s nothing in Last Blood that suggests that all Mexicans are bad people, or anything ridiculous like that. I feel like if you’re going to accuse Last Blood of being xenophobic or whatever, then you’re basically accusing any action movie that’s had a non-white villain of doing the same. I think that the only way you’re going to think that this movie is racist/biased/whatever is if you’re an oversensitive SJW that tries to look for racism in anything you can, or if you’re going in with the preconceived notion that the film is this way based on what other people tell you. I only bring up this issue because I think that it’s sadly contributing heavily to low critic scores, and I think it’s a shame, because it’s not even remotely true and is potentially ruining audience interest in this movie. See the movie and judge for yourself, of course, but I didn’t find anything problematic about the movie, and I think that you shouldn’t let this silly accusation ruin what’s otherwise a great action movie.

Cool, so now that we’ve had to waste time to have that discussion, let’s talk about the actual movie. First of all, I want to talk about the plot. I will admit that it’s kind of generic, especially if you’ve seen an action movie like this before. The events that happen early on in the movie are basically just happening so that we can establish relationships and villains and such, and so that once these things get moving we can get into what everyone wants. As such, there wasn’t really many points in the movie where I didn’t know what was going to happen next. The story works, but you’re getting exactly what you’d expect from a movie like this. The only real compliment I’ll give it is that there’s a point about halfway through the movie where there’s a plot twist that I really wasn’t expecting. Without spoiling specifics, what I mean is that for the first time in the Rambo series, we see him fail really badly, and the consequences are very extreme. There’s definitely been moments in the franchise where Rambo doesn’t succeed, but what I’m referring to is a truly significant failure that has a huge impact. I just didn’t expect the movie to do what it did, and so for that the movie did surprise me.

Unsurprisingly, though, the real draw here is the action. Sylvester Stallone proves once again that he’s somehow still got it in his 70s. He’s still a truly intimidating force in Last Blood, and so this results in some real brutality. While the movie does have some great action moments spread throughout the movie, the real achievement here that’s hard not to focus on entirely is the last 10-15 minutes of the movie. The finale is such a well-choreographed action scene, filled with a unique variety of kills that are so satisfying to watch. We get to see Rambo do what he does best, and it winds up probably being the best action scene of the whole franchise. For me, the finale alone makes the movie worth watching, but there’s definitely a lot of great stuff sprinkled throughout the whole movie.

In the end, Rambo: Last Blood actually winds up beating out 2008’s Rambo for me as being my favorite of the sequels. None of the sequels even touch First Blood in terms of overall quality, and so that’s definitely still my favorite of the Rambo series, but Last Blood is still a damn good action movie. Sure, its story can be a little generic and predictable, and it does definitely take the series in a much different direction, but it succeeds on every level of being a solid and exhilarating action movie. If you’re a fan of the series, or you just want to see Stallone kick some more ass, then definitely ignore the SJW critics and give this movie a shot.

4/5