If you want to enjoy some often very good and often very bad action movies, the "Rambo" franchise is for you. And if you want to watch the strange and often disturbing trajectory of America's political core over nearly 40 years of cinema, the "Rambo" franchise is also for you. By accident or design, Sylvester Stallone's famed action series contains multitudes. They're macho, violent, ridiculous one-man-army movies. They're also propaganda, apologies for propaganda, and then propaganda again. They demand popcorn, and a crowd ready to hoot and holler. But also analysis.

But few film franchises outside of "Fast and Furious" have titles as confusing as the "Rambo" movies, which defy common logic and may have you, the John Rambo newbie, wondering if there's a trick to watching these things. Honestly, the key is to watch them in order of production. It's the only way to appreciate the series' loose continuity and,...