Sylvester Stallone
John Rambo

There's nothing to do, ideas have run out, ALL the heroes of the 80s are returning to the cinema, hoping to make money by exploiting the nostalgic streak of the fans. My anticipation for Indiana Jones is zero! Terminator 3 disappointed me, Bruce Willis made me have fun again, but we nostalgics were waiting for the new personal war of John Rambo’s unhinged mind. So much anticipation and here's the result:

less than an hour and a half, the film flies by so quickly it feels like watching a short film, but what happens in this very short time? What happens is that our hero has aged and become a boatman, what happens is that once again someone reaches out to him to propose a new adventure, and now I would love to say "what happens once again is that he accepts and returns to give us his pearls of wacky US-made action, tough and unintentionally funny like that masterpiece "Rambo 3" but it's not exactly so.

This is a film about war, not a Rambo movie! Usually, Rambo's adventures are spiced with sci-fi actions, tons of bullets that never hit him, hundreds of enemies jumping on him and falling like ripe pears, chases in pure indestructible Hollywood hero style, with guerrilla missions that have nothing to do with real war. His are not REAL adventures! (except for the realism of the first episode). In this fourth chapter, in my opinion, a colossal mistake was made! Giving a documentary touch about the war in Burma, raising public awareness about the atrocities of war and the pain of the poor victims using the face of an '80s star, the message of the film is clear "War is a disgusting thing, what you will see really happens every day, even if you already know it, even if you see footage of children without arms and legs on newscasts around the world, even if you already know that down there they torture women and play a game of chasing hostages amongst the mines... WE still wanted you to see it again in the form of entertainment with your favorite hero". Ridiculous, shameful! If I want to see these things, and if I want to suffer, I watch the news or a CNN documentary, if I go see Rambo I want ten thousand soldiers to surround a mountain to besiege Rambo who is fixing his wounds with needle and thread and at a certain point the captain should come and say "I didn’t come here to save Rambo from you, but to save you from Rambo"!! this is the real Rambo! Here instead, I see this sixty-year-old boatman, doped like a Mr. Olympia competitor, with redone lips and hair like Michael Jackson, who suddenly, guided by the urge of a blonde lady, remembers being the virile Rambo and returns for half an hour to perform his last slaughter like the good old days! An almost disappointment!

I say "almost" because.... My negative reviews found contradiction when the Italian stallion grabs the machine gun, starts making grunting noises with his deformed lip and swollen veins... damn, I couldn't see anymore! I started shaking with joy, I had a thrill of nostalgia that no other '80s star coming back to the spotlight made me feel! I stood up and shouted "welcome back Rambo" shouting like a kid, feeling part of the action! I took my friend's popcorn box and had fun simulating the machine gunner and shooting with my childhood idol! I wanted to leave the cinema and chase the immigrants with a hunting knife! What a thrill guys! The only real Rambo moment of the movie!!! For a moment I felt jazzed up like in the third chapter. But then the action ends suddenly... our Rambo watches from the top of the hill the poor survivors embracing and loving each other... sees "his" woman desperately searching for her friend, sees everyone crying and hugging.. and then here's another dose of Stallone's morals, Rambo, always resigned to life, abandoned by everyone and filled with hatred, finally finds the meaning of family and the importance of loving someone, perhaps remembering his lost friends, and this rediscovered goodness leads him to return to his family(?). We then see him (all cleaned up, looked like Lorenzo Lamas) walking towards the road to home(?) in a long sequence shot that leads to the closing credits.

What can I say.... It's the most violent film of the series, but it's a violence too realistic to be a Rambo film, all these atrocities happen every day.. why should they be included in a nostalgic action film? In the end, very little of Rambo "character" remains. Not only conceptually but also physically, the action scenes are presented with a frenetic editing that serves to hide the embarrassing awkwardness of the protagonist. Thankfully he didn't take off his tank top otherwise it would have been embarrassing! The age is gone, the physique is faker than an inflatable doll. If you take away the fun-filled moment (felt like being at Disneyland) of the super machine gun... there’s little left of John Rambo. There are no more of his speeches, his dramatic monologues about war, there's nothing at all! Just a famous figure moving in a film about the atrocities of war. I expected something else.. although in the end... I wasn’t entirely disappointed.

In the end... seeing Stallone in the cinema as Rambo, even if only for a few moments... is always a pleasure!