Rambo: Last Blood – An Entertainingly Bad Action Film

When it comes to films like Rambo: Last Blood, the supposed last film in the long-running Sylvester Stallone action franchise, one must set their expectations accordingly. This film doesn’t bring much to the table in terms of smarts, depth, or even simple coherence and certainly won’t be winning any awards anytime soon. At the end of the day, it’s a stupid action film with allusions of being something more than that. For some audiences, this will be more than enough but others will surely be disappointed, assuming they even bothered to show up to the theatre to see it in the first place. In reality, the result of the film’s inherent problems (for which there were many) for whatever reason make it more endearing in an odd, so-bad-that-it’s-good kind of way.

Whether or not this film is really the end remains to be seen but as of right now, Rambo: Last Blood sees our titular hero John Rambo (Stallone) confronting his repressed troubled past in order to exact his revenge, in his own unique way, against a group of Mexican traffickers. Meanwhile, nothing about this film should come as a surprise to anyone who has ever seen any films before. The story was so predictable that it stopped being fun fairly quickly (constantly guessing the most illogical next step and being right more often than not), leading to mild boredom. It was also so laughable that it was difficult to care though it would still be somewhat entertaining to watch in an unintentional kind of way.

Ultimately, audiences want to see John Rambo do John Rambo type things and for that, Rambo: Last Blood certainly does not disappoint. However, the film would do so in a fairly gratuitous way (and earning its 18A/R rating in the process), seemingly for shock value, which would also get repetitive fairly quickly. The script may be laughably bad, the story may be dull and stupid, and the action may be gratuitously over-the-top but many will surely remember the film’s climax that served as the epitome of the film’s problems. Though it shouldn’t work on paper, intentional or not, it somehow does and was extremely entertaining to watch. Suffice it to say that to truly enjoy the film, audiences must turn off their brains and surrender to the badness.

Rambo: Last Blood, like it or not, would not be the same without Sylvester Stallone. The writing may not have been there but he still makes the film here for the right and wrong reasons. Watching him impose his will on the film’s many nondescript bad guys was somewhat fun to watch despite being stupid and repetitive, however, his age also shows and made him stick out in an unintentionally funny way. For the most part, this was Stallone’s film as there were little to no noteworthy supporting performances to be had which was fine.

In the end, Rambo completionists and/or Stallone fans may find something to enjoy in Rambo: Last Blood but for those looking for an entertainingly bad action film, this may also be up your alley.

*still courtesy of VVS Films*

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.