Rambo: Last Blood Will Save Stallone

ManlyMovie really stuck the bats and boots to Sylvester Stallone this summer. To be honest, he deserved it and in the end only damaged his own career. But I honestly don’t believe all is lost.  I’d hoped a while back that Stallone’s last chance would be Rambo, where I said he needed to use a final Rambo movie to make amends.

Now the news that Rambo: Last Blood will be directed by Sylvester Stallone makes me think “it ain’t over ’till it’s over”.

Stallone does have a chance to steer his career back on track one last time and he has used Rambo to do it at least once before.  But he needs rid himself of that complacency that he has sunk back into and make a serious movie, true to the character and series and with no inhibitions. I feel that this is what is coming down the pipe.  For this one, I am going to stay positive and predict that Rambo: Last Blood will give old John J. a fitting send off.  I think Stallone might even kill him, now that would be ballsy and the antithesis to the philosophy of The Expendables 3.

The fact that Stallone has boarded the movie as director, I would like to interpret, means that he is aware of the shitstorm over his recent movie and the general box office lethargy of his recent resume in general.  And that because of that, he feels the need to be more ‘hands on’.  His best movies since 2008 have been Rambo and The Expendables (especially the director’s cut) and they just happen to have been directed by him.  Rambo is different, too.  Rambo made him, along with Rocky.  It’s a personal property.

Surely, because of that fact alone, Stallone is getting serious with this.  It’s filming in America.  It’s the last in the series.  It could be his last chance.  Can Stallone atone with this movie, or was The Expendables 3 fiasco the last straw?