Film: Rambo: Last Blood

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Yvette Monreal, Adriana Barraza, Óscar Jaenada, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Genie Kim aka Yenah Han, Joaquin Cosio, Paz Vega

Director: Adrian Grunberg

Rating: 2.5 Moons

Almost four decades after he drew first blood, Sylvester Stallone is back as one of the most iconic action heroes of all times, John Rambo. However, the film does not exactly live up to the benchmarks established by its predecessors. Stallone who has co-written the script is a 73-year-old who is living on an Arizona farmstead in retirement, breeding horses but still has some gumption and grit left in him. 

RECOMMENDED READ: An angered Sylvester Stallone is all set for the final mission in the poster of 'Rambo: Last Blood'

Other than a few offhand references to John Rambo’s past, the film can pass off as any Hollywood actioner. The film opens with Rambo leading a retired life at his father’s horse farm. He also maintains an underground network of survivalist tunnels in which he broods and probably thinks of his younger days with his collection of weapons. He has found himself a surrogate family Mexican housekeeper Maria (Adriana Barraza) and to her orphaned niece Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal), whom soft-hearted Rambo thinks of as his own kin. 

When Gabrielle ignores her family’s advice and ventures into Mexico to meet her deadbeat estranged father and gets kidnapped as a sex slave by a Mexican cartel, Rambo springs into action to rescue her and bring her home. In the process, he unleashes his wrath on the Martínez brothers, Victor (Óscar Jaenada) and Hugo (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) who eventually buys Gabrielle. 

The film is a gory, gut-wrenching carnage that Rambo unleashes on the Mexicans and the cartels. For many, Rambo: Last Blood will be their first Rambo film and will presumably make them no fans of the iconic franchise. It would have been better if Stallone had stuck to Rocky Balboa instead of John Rambo. 

PeepingMoon.com gives Rambo: First Blood 2.5 Moons

(Source: PeepingMoon)