While Rambo: Last Blood was a majorly disappointing addition to the Rambo franchise, it was partially Rambo 4’s great ending that set back the sequel. The Rambo series went through a strange evolution throughout its five movies. While the original Rambo: First Blood is a thoughtful, bleak thriller about a traumatized soldier returning from Vietnam and struggling to cope with civilian life due to his PTSD, Rambo: First Blood Part II is a jingoistic action movie where the same character mows down scores of faceless enemy soldiers in the name of freedom. By Rambo III, the character was jetting across the globe to fight another war.
While the children’s cartoon based on Rambo was easily the zenith of the franchise, the plot of that show was not too dissimilar to the story of Rambo III. Rambo III might have been a lot bloodier, but both told the story of an invincible super-soldier who fought for American values all over the world, killing foreign villains in the name of freedom. Fortunately, 2008’s fourth movie, a reboot simply titled Rambo, took a more measured approach to the character. This time around, Rambo really did seem troubled by all the killing he had done and heartbroken by permanent war. This didn’t stop him from killing again, though.
Last Blood Couldn’t Top Rambo 4’s Action-Packed Ending
In fact, the fourth Rambo movie has a wildly violent climax that its belated follow-up, 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood, couldn’t outdo in of sheer body count. This led to a major problem for Rambo: Last Blood, which understandably wanted to outdo its predecessor but could not hope to do so due to the carnage of 2008’s Rambo. Rambo kills 110 people onscreen by the end of Rambo, which is almost double his First Blood Part II total. As such, there was no way that Rambo: Last Blood’s ending could pull off a higher body count without descending into unintentional comedy.
Rambo: Last Blood came up with an ittedly novel solution for the sequel’s inability to top the sheer number of onscreen deaths seen in Rambo. The story of Rambo’s violent revenge against a Mexican drug cartel that kidnaped and killed his found family, Rambo: Last Blood went for a more visceral, up-close style of violence. Instead of going for more onscreen deaths, the deaths themselves became gorier. This might have made sense in 2008 when Rambo was released during the height of the torture porn craze. However, the violence in Rambo: Last Blood felt gratuitous and outdated in 2019 when the sequel actually arrived.
Last Blood Brought Back An Unwelcome ‘80s Action Cliché
Rambo: Last Blood’s extremely bloody kills were reminiscent of Commando, First Blood Part II, the Death Wish series, and other ‘80s movies that equated gore with action. These R-rated hits were fun, but their use of extreme violence wasn’t their primary selling point. Not only that, but these movies also used practical gore effects, which were a lot more impressive and impactful than Rambo: Last Blood’s CGI blood. If, like the original First Blood, Rambo: Last Blood was a radical anti-war movie, then the camera's lingering focus on torn-out hearts and halved skulls might have been justified. However, Rambo: Last Blood wasn’t a war movie at all, which led to another issue.
Last Blood's Story Couldn't Top Rambo 4 Either
2008’s Rambo didn’t just give Rambo his best killing spree ever. The sequel also situated this wildly violent set-piece at the climax of a story which made Rambo feel human again. Rambo provided its title character a bittersweet ending when he returned to the US and finally came home, and the sequel’s opening half made it clear that a lifetime of bloodshed had taken a real psychological toll on the franchise’s antihero. In contrast, Rambo: Last Blood couldn’t top Rambo’s ending because the character didn’t need another adventure, meaning the movie felt superfluous before its derivative plot even began.
In 2008’s Rambo, viewers were given a vision of Rambo that aligned with his original novel incarnation. Per author David Morrell, “It's spot-on in of how I imagined the character — angry, burned-out, and filled with self-disgust because Rambo hates what he is and yet knows it's the only thing he does well.” In Rambo: Last Blood, fans of the franchise got an extremely bloody reminder that Rambo was great at torturing and killing, but not much else. Since Rambo 4 already gave the Rambo franchise a fitting coda, the sequel inadvertently set Rambo: Last Blood up for failure.
