Rambo series

(Amazon Streaming, December 2020) Considering the downward trend of the Rambo series and the less-than-stellar impression left by this latest instalment, I’m tempted to ask if they really mean it when they say Rambo: Last Blood. Is it a promise? Is it legally binding? This time, seventy-something Sylvester Stallone hauls himself from the retirement home for another go at the Rambo character. This time around, he goes off to Mexico to rescue his niece from the clutch of sex traffickers, then comes back to the farm to set up a gleefully gory series of traps meant to show that, even at an elderly age, Rambo can take on an army of ethnically coded bad guys. While I do like that this final (?) instalment closes a circle that began with a loner assaulting typical America and ended with him defending what he has against enemies, this is thin and weakly realized over-rationalization for what’s a straightforward shoot’em up. Stallone can still growl menacingly, but he still looks as if he should be taking it easy rather than play in an overly macho celebration of bloodlust. As with the previous instalment, the gory violence is disturbingly over-the-top, easily exceeding some horror movies in conscious sadism. I’m absolutely not sorry to see Rambo go off into the sunset (literally) – this is a character that has overstayed his welcome, and the series surrounding him has grown unbearably ugly.

(Second viewing, On TV, September 2017) As a Canadian, it amuses me to point out that John Rambo, a character that has come to embody the worst excesses of American jingoism, was twice created by Canadians—novelist David Morrell for the novel that gave rise to the PTSD-ridden Rambo of First Blood, then screenwriter James Cameron who developed Rambo-the-war-machine of First Blood Part II. The real story is a bit messier than the sound bite (starting with the influence of all-American Sylvester Stallone in re-writing and playing the character), but it’s a reminder that the character has a far more nuanced origin story than simply seeing Stallone re-win the Vietnam war by himself. It’s practically impossible to re-watch Rambo II today from a simple-minded entertainment perspective: the film itself cries out for socio-critical commentary, either as a gold-plated representation of the Regan-era mindset, as a repudiation of post-Vietnam humility, as wish fulfillment writ national, or as a dispiriting proof that audiences will be gleefully cruel as long as you appeal to their base instinct. Because, not to put it too bluntly, Rambo II is in many ways a terrible film. The set-up makes no sense; the dialogue is blunt to the point of being ridiculous, the plot threads are barely disguised and the overall plot couldn’t be more obvious. Appealing to unsophisticated plot elements, the film gleefully multiplies Rambo’s enemies because, well, why not? It’s not enough to fight Vietnamese soldiers holding American hostages—let’s throw in even-more-evil Russians and duplicitous American weasels who clearly can’t measure up to John Rambo, Esq. as a true-blooded depiction of what it means to be American (mostly by killing everyone else). Sarcasm isn’t just easy in commenting Rambo II: it’s almost mandatory. But here’s the thing: it seems to work in a low-level cunning way. I’d draw the parallels with the rise of reactionary elements in American politics circa 2017, but you’re probably ahead of me in this regard—maybe it’s better to sign off while acknowledging than even in reaching for the lowest common denominator, Rambo II does find one and exploits it for all it’s worth.

(Second viewing, On TV, September 2017) The four-movie Rambo series may be all about an American icon, but it’s fascinating to see, peering closer, that all four movies have their own particular aesthetics. The first film is a gritty post-Vietnam drama about PTSD. The second in an all-out revenge fantasy. The fourth is a reprehensible pile of gory grittiness without much of a point. The third … is just plain dull. Heading to Afghanistan to help the soon-to-be Taliban in fighting the Soviet Empire, Rambo III goes through the motions of an eighties action movie without doing much more than the required minimum. The first half of the film has a mildly compelling arc in bringing back Rambo to the battlefield (so much so that it would form the backbone of the Hot Shots Part Deux parody), but the film’s second half loses itself in well-worn action movie tropes, although the ending sequence finally has some energy in it. It doesn’t make for a very good third entry in the series. While Rambo III’s troubled production may account for some of the lack of focus, the lack of excitement does doom the film to mediocrity—if Sylvester Stallone and the Rambo series weren’t linked to this film, it would be essentially forgotten today. 

(In theaters, January 2008) There really isn’t much to see in this dry, dull and wholly unnecessary fourth entry in this faded series. The threadbare plot is just an excuse to crank up blood-lust until it’s all released in a long and self-mocking third act that is all about violent retribution. Thanks to cheap CGI and two decades of gore-hardened audiences, decapitations and amputations feature heavily in the cringe-inducing butchery; even jaded viewers will wince at this 300-level type of carnage. Not that there’s any attempt at a deeper level of insight from writer-director-star Sylvester Stallone: The emotional beats of the story are trite, the moral arguments are non-existent, the villains have no personality beyond simple evil and the addition to the Rambo mythology are laughable. And even that is spending far too much time dissecting a movie that deserves no interest or attention.

(On VHS, November 1998) Not an easy movie to categorize. On one hand, it’s a straight action movie where stuff blows up real good, and a lone superhero takes on hordes of enemies. On the other, the particular motor of this actionner is post-Vietnam stress: The hero isn’t completely sane, the enemies are not-so-guilty policemen, the setting is a quiet American town. It’s refreshing, for once, to see an action movie in a dark, damp and cold-looking forrestrial setting. Though the whole movie is based on an unexplainable decision (why did he turn back at the city limits?) and the final monologue shows all of Sylvester Stallone’s verbal deficiencies, the whole film has, all things considered, aged pretty well, and stands above its sequels in terms of maturity… though that’s not necessarily saying much.