The squandered opportunity 'Rambo: Last Blood' seems to be

I have not seen the latest and what is supposed to be the last installment of Sylvester Stallone's Rambo franchise, Rambo: Last Blood, and if the early reviews are any indication, I shouldn't bother to.

 It's apparently not just jingoistic (which most of the Rambo films are) but particularly tone deaf culturally, considering the fact that it makes villains out of Mexicans at a time when the president of the United States is already singling them out for disdain on a daily basis.

While I can't say I'm surprised that Last Blood is a lunkheaded disaster -- most of Stallone's films are -- I will say I was hoping it wouldn't be, if for no other reason than there could have been a great final Rambo movie made, one that recalls the gritty realism of the first one -- First Blood -- but also because Stallone proved with the Creed movies that he could wring genuine pathos and power by resurrecting one of his long dormant heroes.

With the exception of Rocky V and probably whatever silly idea he has to resurrect the franchise again sans Michael B. Jordan, Stallone has never really erred with the Rocky character. He's great as Balboa, the humble and sweet gentle giant, who always gets up just when you think he's down for the count.

Rambo, his other most iconic role, has always been more problematic. In First Blood, he is a real person -- a veteran who is pushed to the brink by a particularly sadistic police force.

Sure, that film's message about the mistreatment of returning Vietnam veterans may be a tad on the nose, but as a genre picture its a great cat and mouse adventure, and Stallone gives a truly impassioned, compelling performance in the lead role.

But somehow three years later, Stallone seems to have doubled down on all the macho posturing and turned out a sequel that far more explicitly tries to re-litigate the Vietnam war, and as Rambo puts it, 'win this time.' In one of the most ludicrous blockbusters of all time, Rambo manages to single-handedly lead a one man army to take on the Viet Cong and save POWs to boot. It's a lot of fun in a totally '80s way, but hardly real filmmaking.

Rambo III commits the cardinal sin of being boring. Stallone has probably never been more shredded and inert, but besides the unfortunate veneration of the Taliban, the film doesn't have much staying power and was deemed something of a box office disappointment when it came out back in 1988.

Twenty years later, Stallone tried to bring Rambo back. He was hot off the heels of resurrecting Rocky in 2006's underrated Rocky Balboa, and I suppose he thought he could make lightning strike twice. It didn't, 2008's Rambo is a bloody free-for-all, but it's shoddy looking and politically a little murky, too.

Now, a part of me admires Stallone's hustle if not his values. He's clearly got a titanic ego -- why else would he refuse to let any of his franchises go quietly as he enters his mid-70s all while griping that he deserved to make more money on the earlier ones -- but he is also an undeniably striking screen presence, and when he has a good director with the ability to coral his worst instincts, he can be magnificent (again, see the Creed films).

When I had heard he was seeking to dig up Rambo for presumably one last time, I was open to the movie being a compliment to the very first film in the series. Maybe we'd get more character development and like in Creed, deal honestly with the fact that Stallone is now a very old man, albeit a relatively fit one.

But no. As much as I wanted to hope the film would be something different -- it's apparently 89 minutes of trash. I'm sure it's eye rolling, guffaw-worthy trash but when you read haughty critics saying that the character deserved better, you know it must be bad.

After all, who really loves Rambo or cares about Rambo. Rambo has become almost shorthand for a musclebound brand of toxic masculinity. At the very least Last Blood could have explored how a character like this feels anachronistic in the post-#MeToo world in which we live, but instead its apparently a pretty drab affair.

Stallone has always been a frustrating person to be a fan of for this very reason. He could have been Butch in Pulp Fiction, but instead he stars in a forgettable erotic thriller like The Specialist. After getting an improbable Oscar nomination, he could have pursued more prestige roles, or at least tried to get parts that showed his range, but he keeps making dumb action movies like it's still 1985.

I will probably get around to watching Last Blood eventually, after all, I'm a completist. But I am sorry to say he may have won the battle but lost the war for cinematic immortality.