While Rambo: Last Blood was a largely disappointing addition to the Rambo franchise, it was partly the great ending of Rambo IV that set the sequel aside. The Rambo series has undergone a strange evolution throughout its five films. While the original Rambo: First Blood was a thoughtful, dark thriller about a traumatized soldier returning from Vietnam and struggling to cope with civilian life due to PTSD, Rambo: First Blood Part II is a blast. a patriotic action movie where the same character shoots down a lot of people.
faceless enemy soldiers in the name of freedom. In Rambo III, the character flew across the globe to fight another war.
Fortunately, the fourth film in 2008, a reboot simply titled Rambo, took a more balanced approach to the character. This time, Rambo actually seemed disturbed by all the killings he had committed and heartbroken by the constant war. However, this did not stop him from committing another murder.
RELATED:
Why Rambo 4 Had The Best Version Of Stallone’s Expendables
Last Blood Couldn’t Top Rambo 4’s Action-Packed Ending
In fact, the fourth Rambo film has an extremely brutal climax that its belated sequel, 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood, failed to top in terms of body count. This led to a major problem for Rambo: Last Blood, which understandably wanted to top its predecessor but couldn’t hope to do so due to the carnage of 2008’s Rambo. By the end of Rambo, Rambo kills 110 people on screen, nearly double his total in First Blood Part II. Rambo: Last Blood offered an admittedly novel solution to the sequel’s inability to top the sheer number of on-screen deaths seen in Rambo.
The story of Rambo’s brutal revenge against the Mexican drug cartel that kidnapped and murdered his family, Rambo: Last Blood showcases a more visceral, visceral style of violence. Instead of increasing the number of deaths on screen, the deaths themselves became even more gruesome. However, the violence in Rambo: Last Blood felt unnecessary and dated in 2019, when the sequel actually came out.
Last Blood Brought Back An Unwelcome ‘80s Action Cliché
The extremely gory kills in Rambo: Last Blood were reminiscent of Commando, First Blood Part 2, the Death Wish series, and other 80s films that equated blood with action. These R-rated hits were funny, but their use of extreme violence was not their main selling point. Not only that, but these films also featured practical blood effects that were much more impressive than the computer-generated gore from Rambo: Last Blood. However, Rambo: Last Blood was not a war film at all, which led to its biggest problem.
Last Blood’s Story Couldn’t Top Rambo 4 Either
Rambo provided his titular character with a bittersweet ending as he returned to the US and finally returned home, and the first half of the sequel made it clear that a lifetime of bloodshed had taken a real psychological toll on the franchise’s anti-hero. In contrast, Rambo: Last Blood couldn’t top Rambo’s ending because the character didn’t need another adventure, meaning the film felt redundant before its derivative plot even began. In 2008’s Rambo, audiences saw a Rambo true to his original incarnation in the novel.
According to author David Morrell: “It’s exactly how I imagined the character – angry, tormented and completely self-loathing because Rambo hates who he is and yet knows that’s the only thing he does.” Fine”. In Rambo: Last Blood, fans of the franchise were given an extremely gory reminder that Rambo was great at torturing and killing, but not much else. Since Rambo 4 had already given the Rambo franchise a fitting coda, the sequel inadvertently set Rambo: Last Blood up for failure.