Rambo: Last Blood – Movie Reviews by Ry!

Rambo: Last Blood – Fighting Coherency in a Trail of Blood

Going to the movies, it is an experience like no other.  From anticipation of previews to the roaring of crowds, it can feel like magic on the big screen.  That feeling so specific can be pulled from points of any genre (action, adventure, drama, etc.), but it will define it, good or bad.  Rambo: Last Blood is an attempt to mix multiple genres within a simple story.  With this mixing and an inability to blend story and characters into one, Rambo: Last Blood is an action film that goes beyond, but stumbles to the finish line.

The story continues the story of John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone).  He has been living on his ranch in Arizona with two others, one being his niece Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal).  After certain events cause an imbalance in his life, Rambo is pulled back into action and takes on the Cartel for one final mission.  The one positive element, like most in this series, is the focus on Rambo dealing with his past.  The struggle leads to characterization of ‘past vs. present,’ creating scenarios of humanism.  It pushes themes with an emotional purpose, creating a sense of true drama that has a point.  When the story aims for this struggle, you see the strength of the bond between Rambo and his niece, Gabrielle.  This relationship centralizes the linear progression, providing the glue that holds everything else together.  The rest of the story is an attempt to expand the simple premise within multiple genres.  This creates a vortex of disjointed character interactions, unexplained sub-plots and incoherent dialogue.  Going from scene to scene, there is never any rhythm that connects an emotional expositional sequence with the battering of hyperviolent action. 

The film continues pushing linearity through a web of convolution.  The overexposure stretches the thin plot and basic outline, creating forced interactions and unneeded dialogue just to move the direction along.  This leads to a third act that highlights the overexposure, furthering it through plot fodder and action clichés.  The climax provides a glimpse of a typical send-off motif but is thrown away once the epilogue comes.  Rambo: Last Blood does too much within the aim of its own outline.  By trying to be more than its sum, the coherent value of what was decent gets lost in the noise.  I say, if you’re a fan of the series or like action of 80s stylings, this is one for you.  Otherwise, it is rental for the rest of the movie going audience.        

Full Score – 2 out of 5 (Rental)

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