Movie Review: Rambo: Last Blood

PTSD-afflicted Vietnam veteran John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) has been a fixture of American action cinema for the past 35 years. The stoic, bandana-clad solider has carved out a distinct path in the genre by being a reluctant one-man killing machine that is haunted by his actions and the man he's become because of them. In what's being touted as the final chapter of his eternally grim saga (aka Last Blood), Rambo admirably faces familiar obstacles and provides enough closure to wrap his decades-spanning journey on a satisfactory note.  

While it's definitely pretty far removed from the subtly potent social commentary that elevated First Blood into classic territory, Last Blood is still able to convey a resonant message in its own gruesome way. Underneath all of the over-the-top carnage and straightforward vigilante plotting, Last Blood is a sadistic character study about a physically-and-emotionally broken man in his 70's that comes to realize he's never going to escape the vicious cycle of violence he's been stuck in for his entire adult life. Think of it as the schlocky cousin of Logan where the beaten-down protagonist slowly comes to terms with his mortality while also graphically murdering cartel sex traffickers in a booby trap-filled bunker to avenge the death of a loved one. It's a brutal ride that isn't always easy to stomach, but as the swan song for a character whose existence has only been defined by loss, suffering and fighting to stay alive through violent means, I found it to be an effective and oddly poetic piece of storytelling.

Is Last Blood imperfect? Very much so. There's plenty of unintentionally funny moments (that final kill..) and the villains (Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Oscar Jaenada) straight up stink. At the end of the day, those problems didn't prevent Last Blood from being a sensible, on-brand conclusion to a series that has embraced darkness every step of the way and to be honest, that's all I needed to deem it a success.        
Grade: B