RAMBO : LAST BLOOD - Friday 27th September 2019.

'RAMBO : LAST BLOOD' is Rated R18+, which I saw for nostalgic reasons last week, because I grew up on a diet of '80's action movies featuring Sylvester Stallone and his contemporaries - among them none other than our titular fractured Vietnam War vet, John Rambo. So here we have what is likely to be (judging by the title) the last in the 'Rambo' action thriller film franchise that Actor, Director and Writer Sylvester Stallone has made his own. The franchise launched in 1982 with 'First Blood', then in 1985 with 'Rambo : First Blood Part II', then in 1988 with 'Rambo III' and in 2008 with 'Rambo', and now 'Last Blood' marks the fifth instalment. The series of four films so far were made for a combined US$153M and grossed worldwide US$728M and gave rise to an animated television series, comic books, novels, video games and even a Bollywood remake. Created by David Morrell in his debut 1972 novel 'First Blood' Stallone has played the title character of John Rambo in all films as a US Army Green Berets veteran who is traumatised by his experience in the Vietnam War, and uses the particular set of skills he gained there to fight police, enemy troops, drug cartels and anyone indiscriminate enough to get in his way. Stallone Co-Wrote the screenplays of all five films, and Directed 2008's 'Rambo'.

Here in only his second feature film Directing gig, after 'Get the Gringo' with Mel Gibson in 2012, Adrian Grunberg was announced as Director in August 2018 after ten years of to-ing and fro-ing on again off again Writing and Directing false starts. The film was made for US$50M, has so far recovered US$47M and garnered mostly negative press.

And so we join John Rambo attempting to rescue three wayward mountain hikers during the mother of all rainstorms. John is on his trusted steed and the gale force winds and driving rain are forcing the local search and rescue team off the mountain. Rambo comes across the dead body of the one of the hikers and continues his search. He comes across the other two cowering for shelter - one of whom wants to go off in search of his wife (the same dead body that Rambo saw earlier) and refuses Rambo's help, leaving a young woman to be rescued from an advancing torrent of water heading down the mountain towards them. Needless to say, Rambo saves the young woman, but not the other two.

As the storm clears and dawn rises we see Rambo riding back to his deceased fathers horse ranch somewhere in Arizona, settling the horse back in the stable and taking breakfast with his old friend with whom he manages the ranch, Maria Beltran (Adriana Barraza). Living with them is also Gabriela (Yvette Monreal), Maria's granddaughter, who has done so for the last ten years or so since her mother died of cancer and her father ran out on her never to be seen or heard from since.

Following an afternoon of horse riding together Gabriela reveals to Rambo that a friend of hers, Gizelle (Fenessa Pineda), has been able to locate Gabriela's biological father, Miguel (Rick Zingale), in Mexico. Against Rambo and Maria's staunch wishes, Gabriela secretly drives to Mexico to ask why Miguel had abandoned her and her mother years ago. Gizelle leads Gabriela to Miguel's apartment, where he tells her in no uncertain terms that he never really cared for Gabriela or her mother and that it was easy for him to turn his back on them. Heartbroken by this news, and now realising that the words of Rambo and Maria were correct in the first place, Gizelle takes Gabriele to a local night club where she is drugged and kidnapped by a local cartel for use in their own highly lucrative underground sex trade.

In the meantime, Maria has learned of Gabriela's disappearance in Mexico, and advises Rambo. He drives down to Mexico and interrogates both Miguel and Gizelle about Gabriela's whereabouts. Miguel has no idea but Gizelle is a different story. Rambo is reluctantly taken by Gizelle to the club where Gabriela was last seen, and confronts El Flaco (Pascacio Lopez) the man who was last seen with Gabriela, with non life threatening but very painful injuries. A mysterious woman, Carmen Delgado (Paz Vega) who was drinking alone at the bar, spied Rambo and noticed his actions watching El Flaco. She follows Rambo from a distance as El Flaco leads him to Gabriela's location.

Rambo is immediately confronted by armed members of the cartel led by Hugo and Victor Martinez (Sergio Peris-Mencheta and Oscar Jaenada respectively), then set upon, beaten up and marked by Victor with a cross carved into the cheek. They take his driver's license, revealing the ranch's location, and a photo of Gabriela, whom Victor recognises. The cartel vow to mistreat Gabriela further due to Rambo's intervention in their business, but Hugo lets Rambo live, much to Victor's disgust. So Victor promptly takes out his anger and frustration on the captive Gabriela.

Carmen takes Rambo back to her home where she cares for him until he fully recovers, and has a friend, who is a doctor, who gives him the once over, and stitches up his cheek. After four days, and Rambo has made a rapid recovering from the heavy beatings he sustained, Carmen reveals herself to be an independent journalist who has been investigating the Martinez brothers, the kidnappers and murderers of her own sister two years ago. Rambo later raids one of the brothels, killing several men until he finds a heavily drugged Gabriela. On the way back home in his pick-up truck, Rambo thanks Gabriela for giving him hope and purpose for the last ten years before she dies from a forced drug overdose.

Enraged, Rambo has Maria move away for her own safety suspecting that the Martinez brothers will now come after him. Over the course of the following week or so Rambo rigs the ranch and its labyrinth of underground tunnels built by Rambo many years ago for reasons that are not all that clear, with traps for a pending confrontation. The montage incidentally of Rambo digging trenches, setting booby traps, fixing up all manner of deadly weapons (and many of the DIY kind), and concealing shotguns, assault rifles, pistols, knives, axes, and bows in real time must have taken a couple of weeks but here it is glanced over as though it's all in a days work!

When his work is done (and you also have to wonder why the Martinez brothers leave it for so long to allow Rambo to prepare himself) he then returns back to Mexico to ask Carmen's help in finding Victor. Carmen initially refuses, believing that it will solve nothing, but is convinced after Rambo appeals to her grief and frustrations.

Rambo locates Victor's home, kills several armed guards and ultimately decapitates Victor. When the Police arrive, the paparazzi and Hugo they are confronted by the bloody scene all thorough the house and Victors headless body laying upright on his bed with a knife through his heart, and Rambo's driving license showing his address. On his drive back home, on a deserted highway Rambo dumps Victor's severed head out of the window.

Needless to say this is an open invitation for Hugo to retaliate, and in force. Hugo leads a group of his crack hitmen to Rambo's ranch, where each falls victim to the rigged traps. Cars get blown up and Hugo's henchmen all succumb to being burned to death, stabbed, speared, spiked, shot, sliced, diced and crushed in the most gruesome and violent means possible. 

Saving Hugo for last, after Rambo has detonated the extensive network of tunnels so forcing Hugo out, he leads him to the barn. There with pinpoint accuracy Rambo pins Hugo to the barn door using four very carefully targeted arrows with his crossbow. Rambo mutilates him by plunging his knife into his chest and ripping out his heart. In the aftermath, a weakened Rambo who has sustained two shots to his upper body, sits on the porch of his father's house in his favourite rocking chair, vowing to continue fighting and to keep the memories of his loved ones alive.

With any 'Rambo' film you know exactly what your in for, and here the 73 year old Actor and Writer Sly Stallone once again ramps up the action, the blood letting and the graphic violence. It seems that in 'Rambo : Last Blood' age shall not weary him - at least where the gratuitous multiple deaths are concerned, and all delivered in creative and inventive ways in the name of revenge. But outside of the killings, John Rambo has spent the last ten years ageing peacefully in small town America, trying to put his past life behind him and getting emotionally attached to two people he now holds dear - one of whom is abruptly and prematurely extinguished from his life. And for this, the perpetrators will pay the ultimate price! And they do, spilling their precious crimson stuff all over the place. If you're a die-hard fan of the Rambo franchise and like your body count high and delivered graphically, then this film is for you, but if you're not, then you're best off steering clear. At the tender rage of 73 Stallone still proves that he's got what it takes in the action genre to pack a punch and wield a knife, and thankfully this time around he keeps his shirt on, and his bandanna off, but don't expect too much smart dialogue or stirring emotion.

'Rambo : Last Blood' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE SHALLOWS : Thursday 18th August 2016.

'THE SHALLOWS' which I saw on its opening day in Australia joins Steven Spielberg's seminal 'Jaws' which lurched on to our screens, sub-consciousness and popular culture back in 1975, together with it seems a wave of shark disaster movies year on year every year since, with the likes of several sequels following, and derivatives including 'Deep Blue Sea', 'Open Water', 'The Reef', 'Dark Tide', 'Jurassic Shark' and the more recent 'Sharknado' franchise to name but a few. Just when we thought it was safe to get back in the water, along comes another shark gore fest involving a secluded idyllic beach, a bikini-clad surfing maiden and a monster shark intent on a lunchtime snack of that bikini-clad damsel in distress. It's an easy premise that any Screenwriter could conjure up, and here we have Spanish Director, Jaume Collet-Serra making 'The Shallows' for a meagre US$17M and so far returning US$85M since its US release at the end of June, with what is, it must be said, a very respectable addition to the canon.

Here Blake Lively plays Nancy Adams a medical student, still mourning the recent death of her mother. She decides to take some time out and travels to a secluded beach somewhere down Mexico way, where her mother surfed at whilst expecting Nancy (New South Wales and Lord Howe Island, doubling for Mexico). We join Nancy as she is travelling in a car through the bush en route to said secluded beach with a friendly local, Carlos (Oscar Jaenada) trying to spark up a disjointed conversation with her driver in broken English. Whilst driving she is talking to her travelling companion over the phone who is back in civilisation at their hotel nursing a hangover from the night before and not in the mood for surfing. The pair reach their secret beach destination, and it seems like an idyllic spot. Carlos bids Nancy farewell, and asks how she will get back, but she tells him not to worry, she'll be fine (yeah right!). He drives off, living fairly close by it seems.

It's a perfect day at the beach, Nancy has found the paradise that her beloved Mum told her about, the skies are blue, the water clear and the surf is up. In the water are two local lads and other than that the beach is deserted. After suiting up and waxing down her board Nancy heads off into the ocean to catch some waves, chatting with the two surfer dudes and spending the afternoon making the most of the idyllic conditions. As the afternoon wears on the lads come in, spent for the day and they bid their farewell to Nancy who just wants to catch once last wave for the day. Now she is alone, and in the water a few hundred metres off from the shoreline.

Unexpectedly Nancy is bumped from beneath the surf by a Great White Shark whose attention had been drawn to the area by the corpse of a Humpback Whale floating nearby which Nancy went to check out. Seeing Nancy as a threat to its easy food supply, the shark attacks biting at her leg sending the lone surfer beneath the surface as the water all around her turns crimson. In her panic she swims for the only safe place - the decaying body of the whale, and scrambles up on to its upturned carcass. By now the shark is mightily pissed off and charges the whale with all its fierce might and up turning it so sending Nancy careering into the water. The other surfer lads had alerted Nancy earlier in the day to a small reef that becomes exposed at low tide, and seeing the exposed rocky outcrop she hastily makes for there and some temporary safe haven to nurse her badly shredded leg.

Being a medical student, Nancy is able to improvise and create a tourniquet from her leg strap, stitch up the deep gashes in her leg using jewellery, and create a compression bandage using the arm of her wet suit which she rips off with her teeth. Resourceful girl! There she remains as the tide continues to go out and nightfall draws ever closer. The shark however, continues to circle menacingly. All night she remains stranded on that small rock with only an injured seagull for company, which she affectionately calls Steven (Steven Seagull, geddit?).

As the new day dawns, we are alerted on screen to the number of hours before high tide, by which time the safety of her rock will disappear under the waves, calling for Plan B. That morning coming round in a semi-conscious state Nancy spies a man sleeping on the beach. She calls out to him several times. The man awakes from a drunken stupor, and makes out a distant figure standing on a rock yelling something at him. He spies Nancy's back pack on the beach and proceeds to steal her phone, her cash and the pack before spying her board floating close to the shore line. He thinks he'll make off with that too and wades in to retrieve it. Nancy tries to alert him about the presence of a shark but he pays no heed. Before you know, he's bitten in half, literally! Later that morning the two surfer dudes from the day before reappear ready to catch another day of perfect waves. They jump in the water and begin to paddle out. Again, Nancy from the safety of her rock tries to warn them, but before you know it . . . shark bait!

With three men down, and Nancy's hope for survival dwindling, she spies floating in the water the helmet and Go-Pro camera of one of the surfer dudes. It's close enough that she can just about retrieve it. She does so after some near misses with the shark and views the graphic footage of the shark attack that took the life of the helmets owner. She then uses the camera to record her final message to her father and sister in Texas before tossing back the helmet into the water in the hope that it will be washed ashore and retrieved, and rescue might possibly come, knowing too that the tide is rising steadily around her. Close by however, is a marker buoy, that might offer some salvation if she can reach it in time before another attack by the shark. To reach it though means swimming through a smack of jellyfish which would not only sting her, but the shark too, causing enough of a deterrent to buy Nancy the time to make it to the buoy.

Using a flare gun retrieved from the buoy, Nancy is able to shoot off a round into the leaching blubber from the whale carcass which ignites the sea in flame, and the approaching shark too, which as a result is even more pissed off now! Furiously the shark attacks the buoy and is relentless in doing so time after time until there is little left of the rusting metal construction. The chains securing the buoy to the ocean bed are dislodged and when these finally break free after another attack Nancy allows herself to be pulled down with the weight of the descending metal. The shark follows in hot pursuit with its jaws of death biting at Nancy's heels. Using some quick thinking and evasive tactics, Nancy turns at just the right time to allow for the sharks forward momentum to impale itself on the metal rods protruding from the buoy's mooring turning the shark killer into killer sushi! Well, almost!

I quite enjoyed 'The Shallows' because like 'Jaws' it is grounded in a realism that we can all relate too, unlike many others in the horror shark genre. For its lean 88 minute running time, the film has a number of jump scares, the body count while low is effective and well delivered and there is a believable story here with characters that we can adhere to. The shark FX are reasonably well delivered, there is suspense and atmosphere, and Blake Lively puts in a good turn as a simple Texas lass from Galveston subjected to extraordinary circumstances in complete isolation. This is the 'Jaws' for a whole new generation, and as such worthy of the price of entry.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-