Verdict:
I don’t know what else you would want from this movie.
When I was a young kid, I used to think Rambo movies were terrible. I hadn’t even watched them all, but I knew they were about a half-naked guy firing a machine gun from the hip, killing a bunch of foreigners, and the thought of how unrealistic and stupid that is, made me frown. Later, I’ve come to understand and appreciate the fact that, apart from First Blood (which is an actual good movie), these were just over-the-top 80’s action flicks, and everyone was in on the joke.
So, when you hear that Rambo is back with another movie, what do you expect? Well, let’s see, probably a shallow excuse of a storyline that is needed only to place an oiled-up Stallone and his over-sized machine gun into some poor 3rd world country, where cartoonishly evil bad guys don’t need any excuse to be mauled down in packs of 50, for the remainder of the movie.
Well, let’s see. The story still feels like a placeholder for the action: some hostage rescue in Burma that goes wrong. The local military junta is our cartoonishly evil force, killing and raping their way through the country, as they terrorize the population. Then Rambo steps in to take control of the situation, using his conventional approach of annihilating everybody. There you go, expectations met.
But in fact, Rambo exceeds expectations, as Stallone puts his back into the project. Having shown himself as a capable director, he is now at the rudder and he improved the old formula of Rambo by mixing modern elements of violent realism, and you know what, the old and the new mix together very well.
Stallone succeeds in bringing new life in his character as a tired, brooding and slow, but wise and still very capable veteran. The mercenary characters feel excessively angry, maybe to make Stallone seem more professional by comparison.
But the attempts at making this movie more than Rambo don’t succeed. The movie engages in a discussion about naivety, faith, cynicism and righteousness. Frankly, it is just too short to be both an action movie and a philosophical treatise.
So, why now? Rambo III was in 1988. Any boomers or millennials that may have wanted another sequel, had already come to terms with this franchise being over. Who asked for this? Well, Stallone did, apparently. It was apparently Stallone who prevented the 4th movie be made in the 90’s and it was also him who made it happen in 2008.
So does Rambo bring anything new to the table, compared to its predecessors? Yes, extreme graphical violence!
As part of the dark gritty realism, Stallone made this film as violent as possible, with heads on pikes and guts exploding in every direction. This is not your grandpa’s Rambo. This is the nu metal Rambo. In its defence, this violence looks very effective, and it makes the movie memorable.
Bottom line is, the only thing I still remember about Rambo IV is the action, and it is good. It is better than the last couple of Rambo movies. The gritty realistic brutality fits with its style. It feels crisp, dark and, most importantly, like Rambo.