385. Rambo - Last Blood; movie review

RAMBO - LAST BLOOD
Cert 18
89 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong bloody violence, gory images

When we watched Rocky in 1976 and First Blood in 1982, did we really expect Sylvester Stallone to be starring in sequels 43 and 37 years later respectively?
And don't believe it's 'Last' Blood -  apparently, Stallone's production company is up for eking yet more dollars from John Rambo.
The ludicrousness of septuagenarian Stallone still bringing a gory end to bad guys is only too clear when Last Blood's credits reprise stills from the original Rambo movies.
But let us be clear, this is just a bad picture. Its storyline is weak as a dandelion in a typhoon and is simply an excuse for revenge killings so gory they have earned Adrian Grunberg's film an 18-certificate.
This time Stallone's Rambo is occupied with trying to keep his niece (Yvette Monreal) safe.
He fails at the first fence because she ignores his plea not to go to Mexico to find her biological father (Marco de la O ).
It would be an epic understatement to say he is not a fine upstanding citizen and lives in an undesirable area.
Therefore, when he sends her on her way, she falls into the clutches of local crime lords (Sergio Peris-Mencheta and Óscar Jaenada).
This inspires Rambo to tool up big time.
And that results in a variety of mortal injuries which might turn even the strongest of stomachs.
Yep, Grunberg, presumably encouraged by Stallone and his production company, leaves nothing to the imagination when heads are blown off, carved in or ripped apart.
Ironically, Rambo killed only one adversary in his opening movie and even that victim's last moments were off-camera.
Since then, the body count has ratcheted up. Here it is much lower than Rambo 4 but the deaths are more gruesome.
Why did I want it? For the sake of completeness. Only.

Reasons to watch: Because I felt I had to.
Reasons to avoid: It is just awful.

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 2.5/10

Did you know? Novelist David Morrell named Rambo after a type of apple cultivated by 17th-century Swedish settler Peter Gunnarson Rambo. The author was struggling for the character's name when he asked his wife what type of apple she had given him as a snack. "Rambo," she replied.

Final word (or not!). Sylvester Stallone: "Let me just say something about the ‘last’ of anything. I thought Rocky 3 was the last, you know. So I don’t know anything. If it works I’ll just keep going, you know, because I enjoy it so much.” 

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