Written by Tom Moore
There aren’t many actors who have played as many iconic characters as Sylvester Stallone. With Judge Dredd (Judge Dredd), Barney Ross (The Expendables), Lincoln Hawk (Over the Top), John Spartan (Demolition Man), Lieutenant Marion “Cobra” Cobretti (Cobra), Machine Gun Joe (Death Race 2000), Rocky “The Italian Stallion” Balboa (Rocky), and so many more, Stallone has been a dominant name in action. However, no film cemented Stallone as an iconic name in action cinema more than 1982’s First Blood. As veteran soldier John Rambo, Stallone mowed down and shot his way into the hearts of every action fan out there and has continued to do so for years. Now, Rambo has finally reached his end—for now. With Last Blood, it’s time to see if Rambo’s legacy can end on a high note.
Last Blood catches viewers up with Rambo (Stallone) as he now lives in Arizona as a rancher and caretaker for a friend (Adriana Barraza) and her daughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal). Right away, you can tell that Last Blood is touching a certain genre that other franchises have touched in their finales too: Westerns. Films like Logan and Toy Story 4 have given their protagonist a final arc similar to that of a western hero’s final search for redemption and reflection before they ride off into the sunset. Personally, I love that more films have tapped into the storytelling and visual style of the Western genre as it offers a strong amount of reflection for characters to have and Rambo could’ve been a perfect character to have a Western-styled ending. However, Last Blood unfortunately can’t commit to giving Rambo getting a proper end and its new plot and characters just can’t live up to its iconic protagonist.
What makes Rambo such an interesting action hero is that he’s actually plagued with PTSD and has trouble coping with the world around him. Even after all this time, he still has flashbacks and the tunnels he’s now built under his house resemble the tunnels he faced in his wartime. The beginning of Last Blood definitely focuses more on Rambo still dealing with his past and some reflection on his actions, but this reflection is kept mostly for the beginning. The flashbacks he has completely stop and the glimpses into Rambo’s past and past films are saved for the end. Instead, he ends up being an untouchable action god like most other protagonists in the genre. Sure, he can get the crap beaten out of him and cuts and wounds slightly affect him, but you never get the sense that he might lose or be affected by anything that’s happening.
Not to mention, the film makes a critical error in his arc by having his final acts be about revenge. Throughout the film, Rambo talks about the world being a dark place and the people in it not being much better. Thus, when Gabrielle is taken by a group of sex traffickers as she searches for her father in Mexico, Rambo is forced to face this darkness he’s talked about for so long. However, this “darkness” is nothing more than cartoonish, generic bad guys that feel like such a step down to other challenges Rambo has faced before. There’s also no personal connection to this new enemy, outside of them taking Gabrielle, so it makes this entire endeavor so much less meaningful as a finale for Rambo.
Not only does Rambo going for mindless revenge make these enemies just numbers for the eventual body count, but it offers him very little redemption and reflection necessary for a suitable finale. Last Blood actually barely gives the vibes that this is a fitting finale for Rambo and almost seems not interested in being anything but another Rambo movie. A lot of the characters don’t match the same presence or importance that Rambo has, and the entire story never reaches the level of being a fitting finale.
The only department that Last Blood delivers on in its finale efforts is the blood and gore. Man, oh man, does it deliver. Last Blood can be incredibly brutal at times and the lengths that Rambo goes to take down these enemies is down-right gruesome. It holds nothing back and I’ll say that the finale action sequence in the tunnels will have fans cheering and roaring with how crazy it gets. However, the film is never super action-oriented with its story and it constantly comes off like the film is rushing to get to its fan-pleasing tunnel finale.
So, while Rambo will always be an iconic figure in the action world, Last Blood doesn’t come close to be a deserving finale or even entry for the franchise. For a franchise as revered as Rambo and a star like Stallone, who has said that this might not be the last time we see Rambo for some reason, it’s a shame that they had to go out on a note that’s just O.K.
