The Rambo series - Best to Worst (INCLUDING RAMBO: LAST BLOOD)

While many would see this as an odd choice for my number one, considering how badly flawed this movie is, I feel that this movie is truly great just because it is has a quality that most movies lack nowadays: fun. This movie may be cheesy, full of plot holes and character inconsistencies and may be monumentally silly, but to me, it is 80's action cheese at its finest. Great action, a slick pace and a barrage of great moments (a random soldier being shot by an exploding arrow being my personal favourite) may not make this high art, but it does create a fun time at the movies, which is what movies are meant to do. It also helps that it has a great score, which sets the tone very well. So overall, a brilliant cheesy action flick that can please anybody.

Now here's an unexpected surprise! This latest instalment is not a masterpiece by any means, but it does offer a nice and satisfying conclusion to the series. It's bloody (especially the very thrilling climax), intense and exciting, all the while offering Rambo fans the Rambo action they want. What more could you ask for?

Also, the dramatic elements work much nicer than the earlier films, particularly the scenes between Rambo and his daughter. They're somewhat cliched and trite, but the acting and music is enough to carry them off in my view. While it does make the film overly serious at some stages (a problem the last two films in particular suffered with), it at least pulls it off well, and has enough over-the-top action mayhem to make it worthwhile.

It's no cinematic masterpiece, but if you're a Rambo fan, than this is pure fan service.

P.S. Ignore the critics on this one, who are seemingly using it to whinge about Trump and other political events their left-wing soyboy attitudes can't take. If this among other aspects (like giving crap like Hereditary good reviews) isn't an indication of how worthless much modern film criticism is these days, I don't know what is.

Out of all the Rambo films, this is the most ambitious and has the most depth, both in terms of character and story. Many will tell you that this is the best film in the series because of this, but that is a view that I don't hold, mainly due to how problematic elements of it are. In this version, Rambo is a very hard character to understand or get emotionally invested in, due to how weirdly he acts throughout the story and does things that seem really stupid (e.g. running back into a town that he was kicked out of, leading him to being arrested). The pacing is also very off, as it seems the dialogue scenes are better put together and move at a swifter speed than the action scenes. Speaking of which, the action is dreadful, with overlong, silent and dull car chases and shootouts taking place which are so poorly executed, they make the video game-esque action scenes of Death Wish 3 look like something out of a John Woo film by comparison. Still, the film has many positive attributes. The acting is superb, the second half is a lot better than the first, the supporting characters are well written and I like some of the themes it explores about war and the psychological toll they have on the soldiers who fight in them. This is why I think the film is good but not great overall.

While following in the same OTT vein as Part 2, Rambo 3 isn't as much fun as its predecessor. The main reason for this is that this is essentially a US propaganda piece against the Soviet Union, something that Stallone had a weird obsession with in the late 80's (Rocky 4 being another example). This time, it's against the pesky Ruskies' invasion of Afghanistan, portraying all Russians as evil and stupid & the Americans as heroic, who help the Afghan rebels along the way. Due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the recent wars against Al-qaeda, the film and its politics have aged poorly. It doesn't help that there are many implausibilities that seem to stretch your disbelief too far, even for a silly action movie like this (i.e. the Soviets having little guards at a prison being the worst offender) and there are some serious scenes that don't mesh well (mainly the Russian attack on a rebel camp). The film can still be quite fun though, has a fair share of good moments here and there and the chemistry between Rambo and Colonel Trautman is as strong as ever. So a mixed bag, but one where the good elements outweigh the bad quite well.

To me, this is the worst film of the series. Firstly, the film takes itself way too seriously, and deals with serious issues like genocide and rape in ways so poorly and exploitatively, it makes you feel quite angry. It doesn't help that the film lacks any sort of moral backbone, suggesting that killing and murder solves the world's problems, as charity and compassion will get you nowhere. To me this is an awful message to send out, as it encourages violence which not only will make things potentially worse, but doesn't feel right in a film which has a full-on sequence of genocide in it. When the Manhunt games can boast a higher moral ground than your film, than you know you're in trouble. It also often sidelines Rambo to an insulting degree, and focuses more on a boring and unlikable set of mercenaries, of whom I'm assuming Stallone introduced to gain a wider audience for the film, but instead alienates much of it who expected to see a Rambo film, especially considering how his name in the title indicates that he is the central focus of the film. It also ignores the events between Rambo 3 and this film, thereby creating many plot holes (e.g. what happened to Colonel Trautman? Why is Rambo not in America? Why is he in Burma and has become a sailor?). It also lacks much of the original series heart, as shown by the lack of a Colonel Trautman figure or a great score by Jerry Goldsmith, poorly substituted here by Brian Tyler. All of this is forgiven by the last half an hour, climaxing in a shootout that is everything great about Rambo and more, which redeems the crappy hour that you had to slog through to get there. It also helps that the ending is a fitting end (for now at least) to the Rambo character. So, not great, but satisfying enough and is an overall good send off to this iconic character.