Rambo: Last Blood

I saw “Rambo: Last Blood,” which came out two weeks ago, with a friend and I’ll let everyone know what I thought of it.

11 years have passed since what happened in the last film, “Rambo.” Rambo has left Burma and has come back to his father’s ranch in Arizona. He has found a family somewhat in the ranch’s caretaker Maria Beltran (Adriana Barraza) and her granddaughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal), a young girl about to leave for college. Before leaving for becoming somebody, Gabrielle wants to visit her estranged father, played by Rick Zingale, in Mexico but Rambo warns her not to go. Like any other teenager who wants answers, she doesn’t listen and goes to Mexico, only to be kidnapped and sold to a Mexican flesh trade cartel. Rambo drives to Mexico when he hears the news. He’s beaten up and left for dead. A freelance journalist Carmen Delgado, played by the hot Paz Vega, helps him out. He goes back, rescues Gabrielle but it’s too late. She dies on the drive home because of a drug overdose. Now, Rambo is out for revenge and will go to extreme measures to get the job done.

Devesh Sharma said in his review, “Given the storyline, there would be obvious parallels to Taken. A lone fighter seeking revenge -- there isn't exactly anything new in the plot.” What’s new is that for the first time since the second movie, someone has tried to humanize Rambo. He comes back to his family home, and becomes somewhat of a family man, putting his war veteran self behind him. He does create an underground tunnel around his farmhouse for defense and forges guns and knives. Sharma is right when he states, “But as they say, old habits die hard. While his blood lust may have been subdued, it's not completely gone. Rambo V can be said to be the goriest Rambo film ever. The bad guys die in ways which will put the Saw franchise to shame.” The last act is just complete chaos. To praise Stallone, who is 73-years-old, he still looks good at performing just intense violence to the villains. While the previous films the action was complete skill, here is really upfront and shocking. Too many people get killed in so many ways and after a while, you can’t really keep up with the count.

Sharma credited, “Revenge drama aside, Rambo V is also a cowboy movie at heart. The Arizona imagery, what with blue skies merging with acres of green grass, a man and a horse trotting along in each other's company, lost in silent contemplation and a very Ennio Morricone like score blaring in the background -- it seems like another film in some patches. And the end too -- where a wounded Rambo gallops away into the horizon -- brings back memories of Westerns of yore.” The title is “Last Blood,” but will John Rambo’s lonesome self ever settle down?

The film starts off slow, but does eventually pick up. I like that Stallone brought this back to the first one, where he was making it humanizing and emotional, where you feel everything that happens here. Like I had stated before, the last film was very violent and warlike, but the violence in this film takes it to a whole new level in ways that you never imagined. In all honesty, I sincerely think that this is the best of the sequels. Critics seem to really thrash this, but audiences are praising this. Check it out if you’re a fan of the “Rambo” franchise, like I am. Even though this is said to be the last, I don’t know how true that will be. It was in talks for years, but then Stallone said he was retiring the character, and then he announced that the film was being made last year. Everyone must have thought that a fifth movie was inevitable, and we got what we thought.

Thank you for joining in on today’s review, look out Monday for the continuation of “Halloween Month.”

Rambo

Now we have come to the finale of “Rambo Month,” where I will be looking at the latest in the series, “Rambo,” released in 2008.

This is absolutely surreal since it was 20 years later that a new Rambo movie was released. You would think that there would be a lot of hype, but this one snuck quietly into theaters in January of 2008. I liked that the movie was released then because no movie seems to live up to its hype, so the best option is not to have hype.

If you saw the trailers before this movie came out, you know what you were going to get: a violent war movie. James Rolfe called this film an epic masterpiece when looking at the technical achievements. Everyone who saw this movie talked about the amount of blood spilled in this movie, which is no joke. James Rolfe said, “If you have seen a lot of zombie movies, it’s not that gory, but compare it to any other war movie, this one takes the cake. It makes ‘Saving Private Ryan’ look like, I don’t know, ‘Bouncing Bears from Heaven’.” If you remember in the past Rambo movies, people would fall down after getting shot, but here, their bodies just piece apart. In the previous Rambo movies when people would blow up, they would explode into a fiery explosion, but in this movie, their bodies would surge into puddles of blood. Machetes slice through villains, arms get cut, legs get cut, heads get cut, it’s madness. Picture what "The Expendables" movies would have looked like with the amount of blood spilled in this movie. That's what will be going through your head when watching this movie.

Remember when I mentioned the “Bloodiest Movie Ever” joke that “Hot Shots Part Deux” made? Well, if the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrams were ever to reunite and make a third “Hot Shots” movie, then they should because that joke could not be outdated after seeing “Rambo.”

James Rolfe criticized the story for being a little lacking and had him wondering what he saw after watching it, but said that it’s not completely shallow. Even though there isn’t any good dialogue, Rambo does say a lot with his expressions. A lot of times he would give a cold stare and a bass rumble would follow. There’s a speech he gave that said, “When you’re pushed, killing is as easy as breathing.” He also says, “Live for nothing or die for something.”

When I rate this movie, I don’t think it’s close to being as good as “First Blood” was, but much like with “Rocky Balboa,” this one is the best of the sequels. Two and three felt really polished, but “Rambo” was raw and dark with a lot of shaky camera movements. The camera moved around a lot, pulled focus, making it feel like you were watching a documentary, making it feel like the realist of the movies.

Stallone is not shirtless in this movie, showing off his muscles, there are no one-liners in this movie, and it’s just a No Holds Barred, down-to-Earth action flick.

Much like later on in the “Rocky” movies where you missed Burgess Meredith as Mickey, here you will miss Richard Crenna as Colonel Trautman, who was, as I noted before in my review of the first movie, the classic mentor figure. I’m sure Stallone would have given Crenna a small part in this movie, but he does appear in flashbacks, which are clips from the previous movies. There isn’t really any mention of Trautman, but there isn’t really any mention of the previous movies. By calling this “Rambo” makes the movie stand on its own. James Rolfe said, “If this wasn’t Rambo but was some other guy in the same movie, I don’t think there would be much interest. The reason why I went to see it was because it was Rambo. I was a child when the first three movies came out, so to see a fresh new one in the theater was a real treat.”

If you’re a Rambo fan, definitely see this movie. This may not be the most well-written film ever, but you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Maung Maung Khin plays a ruthless military officer, Paul Schulze plays a missionary, Julie Benz plays the love interest, and Ken Howard plays a pastor. This one takes place in Thailand on the Burmese border.

One sad note is that Stallone told Variety recently that he is officially retiring the Rambo character, especially after years of talks of making a fifth movie. I personally would have loved to have seen a new Rambo, and I'm sad that he's done with the character, but maybe after "Creed," Stallone felt that he shouldn't revive his famous characters repeatedly, or people would feel they would be getting stale. However, I do hear of talks on a TV show, or maybe a focus on Rambo's son. As sad as I am that a fifth Rambo is never going to be made, I am happy that a fifth Spy Kids and a sequel to the 2015 "Fantastic Four" have been scrapped (thank you!).

Well, that ends “Rambo Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed this month of reviews as much as I did making them. Stay tuned next month for “Black History Movie Month” Part 4.

Rambo III

Alright everyone, the time has finally arrived. It’s now time to look at the worst entry in the Rambo series, “Rambo III,” released in 1988.

The movie starts with Colonel Trautman returning to Thailand to once again ask Rambo to go on another mission, and witnesses his stick fighting match, which Rambo wins at. Afterwards, Trautman approaches Rambo at a temple where Rambo is helping build and asks Rambo to accompany Trautman on a mission to Afghanistan to help them against the Soviets. Rambo refuses and Trautman goes off on his own.

Later, Rambo finds out from embassy field officer Robert Griggs (Kurtwood Smith) that Trautman and his army have been kidnapped by the Soviets, led by commanding officer Zaysen (Marc de Jonge) and his henchmen Kourov (Randy Raney). As a result, Rambo immediately flies to Pakistan where he meets Mousa (Sasson Gabai) who agrees to take him to an Afghan desert that is close to where Trautman is held captive, and Rambo is helped by only Mousa and a young boy named Hamid (Doudi Shoua).

Now the problem with this movie is that the political side of it is somewhat complicated and very dated. However, this movie is fun, but not for the right reasons. I say that because the entire movie is filled with one-liners. Everything that is said has a funny comeback from Rambo, Trautman, Mousa and Hamid. There isn’t that much dialogue in this movie, which is fine, but for making this one the way it was, felt boring.

For those who have seen the movie, you might remember the final action sequence. It’s one of the most ridiculous finales in the action genre. Tanks, helicopters, and guns that are shooting at Rambo and Trautman from every conceivable direction, but they stand in the middle of all this pandemonium and not even get one bullet. How is that possible!? If you were to see that part, you would agree that it makes no sense!! It’s like in Tim Burton’s “Batman,” which came out a year later, when Batman was in the Bat-Wing and shoots Joker with everything that he has, but for some reason, misses him, even though Batman had Joker locked in target. At least there, the comedic factor worked since we all know that it’s a comic book adaptation and comic books have a lot of humor in it. Here, this is supposed to be a tough action franchise and made it into a joke with this sequel.

All of the problems I listed are what makes classic movie entertainment, but in all honesty, everyone will say the same thing, this is easily the worst in the series.

Speaking of which, have you noticed that Stallone seems to love making movies around the time of the Cold War? Was he trying to ease the tension in some sort of a way? Well, I do give him credit for doing a better job in “Rocky IV,” but here, I have no idea what they were thinking. If they were trying to do more to ease the tension between the USA and the Soviets, then this one didn’t work at all. If you get the opportunity to pass this one up, then do so. However, if you want to see how bad it is, then go ahead. I will just say this movie doesn’t even belong in the “So Bad It’s Good” category, sorry. I will say that I do give the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrams a tip of the hat for also parodying this movie in "Hot Shots: Part Deux." That's what I liked about those classic parody movies because I saw them before I saw the actual movies they were spoofing, and I got all the jokes. They made it so that you didn't have to see the movies they were parodying to get the jokes, but I digress.

For 20 years after this movie was released, there was no mention of Rambo anywhere. I bet people might have thought if Stallone left the series alone after how bad the third one was received. Actually, the second movie got a 28% on Rotten Tomatoes and this one got a 36%. Why is that? Did people love the fact that they turned Rambo into a joke!? If anything, this one had more racial problems in it than the second one did! How could people like this one better!? Well, what can you do? Just watch the movie and decide if you like it or not.

Don’t think that this was the last in the series. Next week we are going to look at the final entry in the Rambo series with the fourth and final installment. Check in for that because I’m really excited to review that for the finale of “Rambo Month.”

Rambo: First Blood Part II

Wow, I can’t believe it. The year has just begun and I’m already at my 400^th review. Isn’t that something? Just like how I have done with every other time, I will treat this review with care, so let’s get started.

Next up in “Rambo Month” is “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” released in 1985. This one starts with Rambo a year into his sentence, but Trautman offers him the opportunity to return to Vietnam to rescue American war prisoners still in captivity. The man in charge of this operation is Marshall Murdock, played by the late Charles Napier, who is shown as a corrupt political man who doesn’t want to tell the truth. Murdock’s right-hand men are freelance contractors named Ericson (Martin Kove from the “Karate Kid” trilogy) and Lifer (Steve Williams). This is the movie that made Rambo into the more traditional action hero.

The action scenes in this movie are good. Also, Rambo is starting to become human again, especially with a love interest in this movie with a Vietnamese woman named Co-Bao, played by Julia Nickson, who works for an intelligence agency. Unfortunately, the relationship doesn’t work out for Rambo, and if you want to know what I mean, then you have to watch the movie because I cannot spoil it for you. In a way, you could compare this to other movies where an American falls in love with an Oriental girl, like “The Karate Kid Part II” and “3 Ninjas Kick Back.” However, the only difference is that the relationship in this movie doesn’t turn out too well.

Another thing I have to mention is the ending, which is another great one. Rambo basically tells Trautman how he was going to become human again, but found out that he could trust no one. However, he still trusts Trautman. You could basically understand the dialogue between the two since you are rooting for Rambo to become down-to-earth again, but unfortunately, with everything that happened, things didn’t go as planned.

In a way, this is the most classic movie in the franchise, since James Rolfe mentioned that most of the video games were based on this movie and it was parodied the most. For instance, if you watched the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrams masterpiece comedy, “Hot Shots Part Deux,” there’s a scene where the group is shooting all these civilians and there’s a counter at the bottom corner of the screen where the counter keeps going up even when the camera isn’t showing people getting shot. The movie goes on to say that it’s equal to “RoboCop” and “Total Recall” and declaring that it’s “The Bloodiest Movie Ever.” The joke is still hilarious to this day. Wait until we continue in the series to know how that joke becomes old-fashioned.

In my opinion, this movie isn’t anywhere near as good as “First Blood.” That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad movie, far from it. However, my brother noted that in the sequels, there was some racist stuff that occurred, much like how he noted the racism in the “Indiana Jones” series. I don’t see it, but maybe I didn’t dwell into it as much as he did. Maybe he has a way of noting these things better than I do, but I can see where he is coming from. Still, this is a good sequel, so if you liked the first movie, then you should definitely see this one. I recommend it because it’s a more humanizing movie for Rambo, since he was about to get back into basics but circumstances didn’t allow him to do that. It’s sad, but I believe that we all have had that happened to us.

Hold on to your seats because next week is going to be a train wreck. What I mean to say is that we will be looking at the worst entry in the series, which is one that I will not be looking forward to. I’ll just have to brace myself as well because it will not be a movie I want to review. That’s not to say that I enjoyed reviewing all the other bad sequels I looked at, and this one isn’t the worst sequel I have seen.

Just stay tuned for the next entry in “Rambo Month,” even though I know we are all not looking forward to it.

First Blood

Since I have just finished “Rocky Week,” a franchise that led Stallone to such success, I think that it would be appropriate to talk about another franchise that Stallone starred in that everyone remembers him for, the “Rambo” franchise. To kick off “Rambo Month,” let’s get started with the first film in the franchise, “First Blood,” released in 1982.

The basic story of this movie is that Vietnam War veteran John Rambo, played by Sylvester Stallone, returns home from the war and walks to one of his old friend’s house. When he arrives, he finds out that his friend was exposed to Agent Orange which caused him to have cancer and die. Things start to get worse when Rambo is mistreated by Sheriff Will Teasle, played by Brian Dennehy, who takes him to headquarters and interrogates the man. This police department is led by a cruel chief deputy named Art Galt, played by Jack Starrett, and Rambo ends up in his own personal war where he is taking on the entire police force. It started out as a small feud but escalated into a complete war of one man against the police.

I consider this film one of the greatest action movies I have ever seen. This movie doesn’t show Rambo as a good guy taking on bad guys, like the usual “good guy vs. bad guy scenario,” or showing him as a hero or anti-hero, he’s just a livid war veteran wanting revenge. James Rolfe described this film as a “strategy action film.” Don’t think this movie is going to show you how many things Rambo blows up in 90 minutes, it’s all about the suspense that is being built and the character. Just seeing Rambo set up the traps or the decoys and hone in on his enemies is just brilliant. So you can see that Rambo isn’t using brute force, but goes into stealth-mode by setting up the traps and using all sorts of survival tactics. Also, Rambo doesn't really have many lines at the beginning of the movie, but does get more as the movie progresses.

Another person I've got to mention is the late and amazing actor for his time, Richard Crenna, playing Rambo’s mentor Colonel Sam Trautman. He was another classic mentor character in this series for Rambo, similarly how Mickey was to Rocky. I just love it when Trautman says to the officer, “I don't think you understand. I didn't come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him.” This line proves that Trautman is the only one who knows and understands Rambo since he has been with him for a long time and can be the only man that can calm him down, like how Betty Ross could calm Bruce Banner down when he turned into the Hulk.

You can watch this movie, and those of you who have been in a war can guess that Rambo is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is a combat condition where a soldier’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum where it can’t take any more input. The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap. In case anyone is wondering, no, I’ve never been in the military. I have to thank George Carlin for educating me on that condition, since he was in the Air Force for some time, but got kicked out and got the G.I. Bill on honorary terms. I’m not kidding, watch his interviews, he admits it.

Getting back on topic, there is one more thing I have to mention: the ending. Now you might consider this a spoiler, but anyone who reviews this film has to feel obligated to talk about that last scene. Stallone gives one of his best dramatic monologues. Up until then, he was doing a great job and now he delivers the most dramatic monologue of his career. How often do we see an action hero get emotional, break down and cry like Rambo did? This movie is emotional as it is action-packed.

If you haven’t seen this movie, forget reading my review of it. Go out and see it, it’s a must. This is another one of my favorite movies ever because I just love every minute of it. For an action film, this did something new that I hadn’t seen at the time, and I love it. You just have to see this to believe everything.

This movie is based on the 1972 David Morrell novel of the same name. Since this film was successful, it started a franchise, which had three sequels, an animated series, comic books, and a novel. “First Blood” is also considered a cult classic, so you must see it.

Next week I will be looking at the first sequel in the franchise. Since I have been posting reviews every day since December, now I believe I need a week vacation before I post the next review next week and get back to my weekly Friday posts. I deserve it, so I will see you all next Friday with the second installment in “Rambo Month.”