Rambo: Last Blood

Easily the weakest of the Rambo movies, Rambo: Last Blood follows Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo as his idyllic retirement is shattered after his niece (Yvette Monreal’s Gabrielle) is abducted and sold into sex slavery – with the narrative detailing Rambo’s efforts at getting Gabrielle back and avenging her mistreatment. Filmmaker Adrian Grunberg has infused Rambo: Last Blood with a rather distressingly low-rent sensibility that remains an issue from beginning to end, as the movie, which is almost comically unsubtle in its setup, generally plays like a micro-budget actioner that one associates with the straight-to-streaming realm – with Stallone’s typically compelling presence and a smattering of engaging set-pieces preventing the viewer from tuning out completely. And although the film’s first half is almost objectively terrible and incompetent, Rambo: Last Blood, at least, boasts a sporadically stirring third act that benefits from a balls-to-the-wall approach to its violence (even if Grunberg’s inept directorial choices render a lot of this stuff incomprehensible). There is, ultimately, some fun to be had here – the Rocky-style montage of Rambo preparing traps, for instance, or the spectacularly gruesome death of the picture’s central villain – and yet it’s clear, in the end, that Rambo: Last Blood is hardly the satisfying series capper viewers have been waiting and hoping for.

**1/2 out of ****