After almost 20 years without word from John Rambo, the latest installment of Rambo"" movies - directed by Sylvester Stallone and aptly titled ""Rambo"" - is a mess of blood and fragmented sentences that carries nostalgic charm. Even though ""Rambo"" is an entertaining attempt at reviving a dead trilogy, it is not worth the 93 minutes it takes to watch it.
The plot to ""Rambo"" is very thin, but it holds up. After his adventures to Afghanistan, Vietnam Veteran John Rambo (Stallone) returns to Thailand to retire. He lives a quiet and disgruntled life of poaching snakes and running a boat on the river near where he lives.
The strength of the movie lies in its pace. The dialogue is terse and awkward. The action is intense and abundant and barely five minutes into the film Rambo is approached by a group of arrogant missionaries from America who wish to enter Burma to help the people. The veteran Rambo tells them off quickly in a barrage of clichés, but they persist, and he begins to develop an attachment to one of the missionaries, Sarah (played by Julie Benz of Showtime's ""Dexter"").
Stallone makes it clear from the beginning that this movie is entirely about the character Rambo because every character exists for the sole purpose of Rambo proving them wrong or saving them. After Rambo predicts that that missionaries will disappear, he is approached by a priest who has hired a band of mercenaries to bring them back. Again most all of them are very arrogant and will not allow Rambo to help with the rescue mission. Rambo himself is humble, only revealing his first name once and relying entirely on his actions to prove his worth. And yet again, Rambo proves that actions speak much louder than words.
Anyone expecting a verbal masterpiece can look elsewhere. Even though Stallone has been making movies for over 30 years now, he still has a hard time finishing sentences and the characters in ""Rambo"" act far too stubborn to listen to him anyhow. But then again, Rambo is not about dialogue . Rambo has his inner conflicts, but they are all settled externally through obscene amounts of violence.
The movie starts off with lots of violence and only pauses briefly to set up the plot before continuing on with more violence until the film reaches its bloody climax. The plot deals with the conflict in Burma and at times Stallone goes overboard trying to give examples of the war-torn country. He attempts to stir sympathy for the people of Burma with gore, but really only succeeds in being gratuitously graphic.
On the other hand Stallone proves that he knows how to make an action movie. ""Rambo"" comes complete with enormous explosions, a bow-and-arrow action sequence and plenty of blood. Rambo is still a master of hand-to-hand combat, taking lives with the squeeze of his hand.
In the end, what Stallone gives us is an action packed Rambo movie that goes along with the bloody theme of the other Rambo movies, but not much else. The movie has little substance and is often ridiculous enough to laugh at. But we cannot really expect much more than a bit of entertainment from a series that has already run its course.
