Rambo: Last Blood Review

The last hurrah of legendary fictional action hero John Rambo in director Adrian Grunberg’s Rambo: Last Blood is both terribly inconsistent and brutally redundant. While the film's indulgence in grotesque and grisly violence creates a third act that conjures entertaining yet repetitive set-pieces, most of the film is often marred by a dreadful script and distractingly sloppy filmmaking. While the over the top violence becomes the catalyst to a collection of memorable moments, everything the film introduces feels cheap and careless by the end of the films short 89-minute runtime. Unoriginal and noticeably flawed, Rambo: Last Blood is ultimately a finale that only achieves scattered moments of amusement.

Nearly four decades after the first film, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo attempts to find tranquility and peace raising horses on his Arizona ranch with a woman he has created a strong bond with named Maria and her granddaughter Gabriela. However, just as Rambo is becoming accustomed to the quiet life he now has, everything changes when Gabriela decides to go to Mexico and find her father, an act that ultimately gets her kidnapped by a dangerous Mexican cartel. Now with Gabriela in grave danger, it’s up to John Rambo to cross the border to save her and kill those responsible.

Those familiar with the continuations of the series will know that the Rambo films have become a celebration of gruesome violence, and Rambo: Last Blood is no different. But the movie continuously bogs down its runtime with terribly executed drama that lacks any emotional weight, leaving the brutal killing sequences to be squeezed into small spurts scattered throughout. While the film manages to produce a short third act that is action-packed and thrilling, the events leading up to that point are terribly cliché and overdone.

Perhaps the most jarring aspect of the film is its despicably lazy filmmaking. The editing feels stale and rushed, many shots are framed strangely, and many scenes are shaky and disorganized. Certain visual approaches that Grunberg decides to take are so boggling that it’s amazing that they made the final cut. Partner these issues with the terrible acting, poor dialogue delivery, predictable narrative, and pointless character arcs, it merely leaves a film that hinges only on the few memorable action scenes it’s able to produce.

Overall, Rambo: Last Blood never does enough to validate why it needed to be made. While its willingness to crank up the intensity of the action sequences keeps it from being completely devoid of entertaining traits, the majority of what makes up the hardly feature-length runtime is shallow and redundant, ultimately forcing the elements that do work into short scenes that fail to be as enjoyable as they could be. While the parts featuring ridiculous action will be enough for some, the majority of Rambo: Last Blood is ultimately an uninspired and mundane experience.

Recycled narrative elements with the distractingly poor attention to filmmaking and screenwriting burdens the rampaging action scenes of Rambo: Last Blood.

Produced By: Lionsgate
Runtime: 89 minutes
Rating: R