4 out of 5

Director: Sylvester Stallone

That’ll do John, that’ll do.  So Stallone had a very on-hands involvement with his Rocky character, making the progression from film to film – while maybe not always resulting in A plus material – conceivable in the scope of who the character was and how he functioned.  Stallone shaped that world over 6 films.  Rambo worked differently.  Maybe because he was working around other people’s material (adding to scripts), because he wasn’t the director, because it was more of an action vehicle after the first flick, who knows.  But John J. – the crazy loner from First Blood – slowly got lost over the next two flicks.  But Rambo brings it back.  The general structure isn’t reaching to break any conventions – we’re still molded to “it’s not my war” and then a reason to piss Rambo off and get him to fight – but fully under Stallone’s wing, this film has extrapolated the character to the proper loner extent, living in Thailand, saying, mostly, ‘eff off’ to everyone and everything, and wrangling snakes.  Some missionaries coax John into taking ’em up river and when they get mixed up in some crazy Burma business, the old flashback rage comes pouring back and Rambo stomps into the jungle to mix it up.  AND MIX IT UP HE DOES.  It is ridiculously bloody overkill but it is effectively brutal and grisly.  Stallone takes a very cynical view on war here and he punctuates it with bodies and blood, properly dragging the brutality of First Blood into the modern age by upping the ante.  Even desensitized to blood, the scenes are still effective, the purposefully bland cinematography and excellent sound mixing just making the scenes of battle harsh.  Stallone tosses some mercenaries into the mix to give us some different POV’s on the world, and to his credit, whether or not we like the characters he gives them a fair shake on the battlefield – the war isn’t won by Rambo alone.  It’s also the best paced of the series – the three prior films would do a constant build and release thing that would get tedious, but here, once it starts it’s pretty much on.  So there are no earth-shattering messages here, or any wacky stunts to write home about, but Sly wanted to bring Rambo back to the world of shattered menace he originally occupied and… mission definitely accomplished.