When the girl he raised as his own daughter gets kidnapped by Mexican human traffickers, Rambo goes on a rampage to get her back.
Let me tell you a story about John Rambo… Behind the American propaganda and the real-life wars that affected real-life people in the real-life world, Rambo, as a fictional character, is a man not so different from you and me. With desires, wants, needs, feelings, and emotions. That said, he’s a natural-born killer. In Rambo: First Blood (1982), we get to see that he’s a misled soldier who has realised he is carrying this ‘curse’, and upon running out of missions to complete, all he needs is to be left alone as the world makes no sense to him. It never did and probably never will.
Cutting to Last Blood, the ‘curse’ has not been lifted, but now he has found a (mission) purpose: the daughter he never got to have. The story is solid, don’t get me wrong. The idea behind Last Blood makes it a Rambo film through and through. Its development becomes the problem, though. Director Adrian Grunberg, actor/writer/producer Sylvester Stallone, and the studios should have revised and tightened the script up, deciding on its tone, rhythm, pace, and continuity. Gabrielle’s father switches, in a blink of an eye, in a way I am still scratching my beard. Human trafficker Hugo Martinez knows military combat communication (somehow), but no tactics at all, and the story itself holds back on dramatic intensity, especially surrounding deaths, and goes full throttle on brutal violence like anything you’ve seen in the previous instalments. Last but not least, it feels as if the writers forgot who Rambo is for a few minutes and sent him straight to an ambush that a 5 y/o would have seen blindfolded – still scratching the beard. By the way, I totally didn’t see one event coming, though (no spoilers). You can read here about the funny or comic versions of other scripts that were handed in at the time before the studios chose this one to be the one: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1206885/trivia?item=tr4768586
These are the inconsistencies I am talking about. Make sure you watch the extended R-rated version, which is much more… juicy! Be it as it may, the action is indeed brutal, and if you want to blow some steam off, just put it on and hit ‘Play’. Do not try to find plot holes; it’s not productive. After all, it’s not every year the year that two major franchises that my generation grew up with come to an end. That and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives who suffer the atrocities of war!
Stay safe!
