I am a ‘Rambo: First Blood’ fan. That movie defined the Rambo series as the baseline for the franchise, in a similar vein to the Matrix, Alien and Terminator movies. Granted, some of these franchises did develop, but how many for the better? This one signals a return after 20 years, to Sly’s halcyon days as a loner that finds he is a brother in arms, against a brutal Burmese regime. Brutal is a very key word here, war is certainly all of that, and I am no soldier, but straight from nightmares, this is a depiction in the coldest of light. The gang rape and of womenfolk, killing of children and hewing, shooting or blasting of limbs is almost wanton and gleeful. I’m sure it has a place, but isn’t this a form of war porn?

Cutting to the story, we have scenes of a peaceful man, John Rambo, catching snakes, shooting fish with a bow and arrow, and distributing same to the poor, even a blacksmith type as he manufacturers boat parts – a regular nature boy then? But with the appearance of a party that wants passage north, the whole thing takes a turn for the worst, Rambo utters at least 30 words, probably accounting for a third of his on screen dialogue and tries to convince the missionaries to return on the path from which they came. As with horror movies and the cellar, they decline (god bless them) and at least we have an excuse for the bloodletting to follow as he drops them in a remote location and heads on home. The inevitable happens to these gentle people and the village they try to help, leading to the foundation of a premise for the next chapter in John Rambo’s war with evildoers and himself.

What follows is pretty much the standard Rambo fare, in this case some non-entity enlists his help after the original party do not return and Rambo grudgingly consents, the twist being that he has a party of mercenaries to chaperone this time and for once, he is not alone. The stereotype casting of the soldiers is hilariously overdone, a loud mouthed cockney and a number of hard cases with stories, along with a singer….but as bad as that seems in type, the dialogue is far worse. As they head into the fray, a sort of status quo is established and we head into a frenetic final third, which contains most of the action.

The action is as stated very graphic, I have seen bloodletting in war movies before, but nothing on this scale, I am sure it is more realistic, and perhaps Sly is trying to de-glorify the fare that is the standard war movie, either way, is definitely not for the squeamish, though the camera does not dwell on the aftermath. The acting is wooden to the extreme, too many long stares, sometimes filled with poor dialogue, sometimes just the unintentionally funny mercenary banter. The suspension of disbelief that all super soldier movies require is no less here than in the earlier movies, in fact at his age Rambo should be killing nothing more than time. The cast around him is poor to say the least, not one of them convinces beyond the basics required for the part played. You will not find a statement over and above ‘war is hell’ nor any reason for the military to act in the way depicted, the military brutality exists to justify the subsequent carnage by Rambo and co.

6.5/10, If you are a Rambo fan, with a strong stomach for violence, then this will be a delight, indeed it does deliver on the pure action, style, and bloody violence. Stallone has managed to take the earlier First Blood movie and mix in the more exaggerated set piece action from the later franchise efforts. If the acting and dialogue had been better, it would certainly have been a much lauded effort.