MovieChat Forums > Rambo: Last Blood (2019) Discussion > After seeing Last Blood, I can officiall...

After seeing Last Blood, I can officially confirm that my suspicions were true...


This movie was bad and completely unnecessary to the franchise. Rambo 4 is where it should have ended.

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It really does disrupt the perfect ending that movie had....

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Absolutely. Utterly disappointed by this movie. I left with mixed emotions and feelings, but ultimately, I've decided this film was a bad Rambo film.

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I wouldn't have cared if the last one wasn't so good. It was a mistake to revisit after he had such a good entry last time.

I gave it a chance because I felt the same after Stallone redeemed the Rocky franchise with Rocky Balboa, and was upset that he was doing the Creed thing. But that ended up surprising me. So I had some faith in Stallone for this one. But it was a bad call.

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Agree completely.

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Yeah. After reading all about it I decided not to watch it. I like where Rambo 4 ended.

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It's a real shame that Last Blood couldn't have been better. I know to some people, Rambo franchise is meant to be a brainless action flick and I agree to a degree because I love all four movies for it's action and story. But, I guess if I have to really think about it, the reason why i wanted this movie to be so damn good is because it felt like it was being marketed as the last one; Stallone said that the ending in Last Blood would be something 'different' and because i personally love First Blood and wanted something more in tone to that.

I was expecting something 'different' to happen to Rambo but Stallone either lied or was mistranslated. The ending (I wont spoil it) was completely shite, random and not different at all in my opinion.

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Yeah man. I don't watch Rambo for the gore and violence. That's just the gravy. Each of the first four Rambo films have very powerful messages in them. Despite the increasingly ludicrous action. To reduce the character to a nuts and bolts revenge story is garbage.

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Agreed man

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Yeah I am kinda wishing it just ended with Rambo walking down the road towards the ranch.

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Same.

For me, it officially ended with him walking down towards the ranch.

:)

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I honestly don't see how this film added in any way to the character of Rambo.

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Yeah. What I got from this movie was Rambo had been living relatively peacefully with two ladies on his farm, however, during the film, we learn that war is stil going on inside him and he has just been "trying to keep a lid on it".

When i first heard this line in the movie, I was like ooooh wow that sounds cool. But now that I think about it, this makes no sense or adds nothing new to Rambo's character arc.

In R4, he must have been keeping a lid on it too until he went to Burma to kill the soldiers, so they technically reused the same 'lid' theme again.

There was nothing substantially new in this movie :(

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I don't even see why it had to be a Rambo movie, again it did nothing for the character so they could have just made it a completely different character and they wouldn't have to change too much else.

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Yeah. Also, this felt like it was Stallone playing some random character, not Rambo because his hair was short. I know this sounds odd and nitpicking, but for me, it added in not feeling like a Rambo movie.

It is now a brand new day and I am still reeling from this film lol!

And what makes it worse is that according to David Morrell, the guy who wrote the First Blood novel back in '72, had pitched a story for Last Blood with Stallone back in 2015, yet Stallone scrapped the story idea. Stallone had approached Morrell because he wanted to make a "soulful" fifth Rambo entry and this was the end result we got...

Why do that? Why ignore the man wbo understands the essence of John J. Rambo?

I need to rewatch all four movies to block out the 5th one...

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I really disagree.

I was not impressed with the trailers and was thinking of just waiting and Redboxing this one, but I decided to go ahead and catch it tonight in the theater and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Maybe going in with low expectations and little hype helped, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it.

There was a strong emotional core to the story, which I think added a lot, and the plentiful kills were creative and amazingly brutal. The story is rather generic, sure, but strong performances, good direction and the aforementioned emotional core made it one of my most satisfying movie experiences of the year.

Is it the perfect swan song for the franchise? Nah. But after watching the dreary and slow-moving Ad Astra my last time out to the movies, it was really nice to just sit back and watch Rambo kick the shit out of a bunch of assholes.

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See, that's the problem right there. I went into this with expectations so I set myself up for the fall... But the thing is, part of my expectations were due to what Stallone said a while ago before Last Blood came out. He said it would end differently than to the previous ones so I was expecting something major and definitive to happen, such as he gets killed after saving Gabriella or he is surrounded by AZ police and he goes on the run on his horse and then... BAM! Credits. This would have been something I'd love to see.

Instead he just wanders off again and sure it's quite tragic and deep but... he's always wandered off (Rambo 2 and 3)...

Also, this film felt like it was being marketed as the final movie so this also influenced my expectations a little...

If this film hadn't have been called "Last" Blood plus the tagline "Everyone has one last fight left in them", I could have likened the ending we got a bit more because I wouldn't have that expectation...

I loved the gritty dark dialogue John gave during the film at some points though... Felt a bit like Rambo in Rambo 4.

Here's hoping for a sequel very soon (due to Stallones age) to give a definitive ending!

Thanks for commenting!

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I have really come to believe that expectations have a huge impact on how much we enjoy movies. There have been plenty of movies where I had been waiting a long time for them and got really hyped, and then when I finally saw them I was like "eh, that was okay." But then I watched them again later with adjusted expectations and I enjoyed them a lot more.

London Has Fallen was that way for me. Michael Mann's Blackhat is another good example.

The thing with Rambo is that, while I think the character is awesome, I have never thought the movies were that great. It's a great character in movies of questionable quality, in my view. So when I went into this latest film, I went into it not with hype but anti-hype, the kind of feeling that you get when you not only didn't like the trailers but you also aren't even a huge fan of the franchise. I like the character and I like Stallone though, so I figured I'd give a shot and I'm glad that I did.

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Yeah you are completely right. Expectations are horrible for a movie... I've done this one too many times.. Problem is, I'm not sure how to control it apart from not watching trailers! Lol

Thanks for commenting!

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Tonight I rewatched the fourth film and I think I enjoyed the new one more. On a technical level the fourth film is probably better--Stallone did a fine job directing it--but it lacks heart and emotion.

Of the missionaries who get kidnapped, only two are given any personality at all, and of those two the dude is annoying as fuck while Julie Benz's character, while noble, lacks a certain something that draws me to her. Also, all the villains are just nameless cannon fodder. Even the general guy is very generic.

In Last Blood though, I cared a lot more about everyone involved, and was touched by Rambo's relationship with his pseudo-niece (who was very likable), and thought the bad guy was a more interesting and fleshed out character than any of the antagonists in #4.

Also, the murder funhouse sequence was more creative than anything in the fourth film as well.

Rambo 5 > Rambo 4

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100 percent agree.
Last Blood is a great Rambo film in my book.

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