Rambo: Last Blood: Script Vs Film

A couple of days ago, the movie ” Rambo last blood subtitles ” was released, positioned as the last part of the adventures of a Vietnam war veteran, a lover of knives, bows, and an honored master of heavy machine gun shooting at large crowds of people. Last year I reviewed his script by Matthew Sirulnik. I rather liked his work, albeit with a number of reservations. The resulting film is not.

As I have said many times, with the exception of the first Rambo movie, this is not at all the franchise from which you expect any special artistic delights. For films of this kind, other factors are important, such as the level of the staging of action scenes, the charisma of the villains, sensible editing, and the director’s ability to correctly present moments of cruelty and violence. In this regard, Rambo 4 was a good example. The tape did not pretend to high ideals, but it was very dynamic, did not sag, and contained a number of different action scenes – from covert penetration into the enemy camp to the classic machine gun rush. Unfortunately, all this cannot be said about the fifth part. In my opinion, the directing of “Rambo last blood subtitles” cannot boast of anything remarkable from the word at all. Probably, it’s easier for me to list what I liked about the film – but I only liked in places the still-sometimes slipping charisma of Stallone. I didn’t like almost everything else – the surprisingly meager amount of action, tortured drama, sometimes a very cheap picture and, of course, very chaotic editing. However, this is not surprising. The reasons for many of the picture problems become even more obvious when you compare it with the original script.

n the opening scene of the film, we are shown Rambo trying to rescue lost tourists during a storm. The funny thing is that this episode was not in the script for Sirulnik. He migrated to the film from the rejected script “Rambo 4” by Dan Gordon, written in the mid-2000s (this is the version in which the main villain was ex-Sheriff Thistle from the original). This is probably a funny feeling when, after a scene from your unrealized work 15 years ago, it suddenly hits the big screen.

Small update. It turns out that the prologue with tourists is only in the international version. But from the version that is being played in the USA, Canada, and the UK, the scene was cut

Sirulnik’s script began with the episode of the kidnapping of the sister of the journalist Carmen, who introduced us to her heroine and set the tone for all further events. The next 20 pages were devoted exclusively to Rambo and his not very successful attempts to adapt to a peaceful life. We were shown several of the hero’s nightmares, in which his ranch became the arena of hostilities, as well as the moments of his disruptions. For example, in one episode, Rambo almost killed a young company that bullied him in a bar. Also, the script emphasized that Rambo was trying hard to stifle his mental anguish with alcohol.

It’s different in the film. Although Rambo did not become the soul of the company, as we can see, he has adapted quite well to a peaceful life and now even smiles. It’s clear that this is all a matter of taste, but personally, I prefer the approach from the scenario, where the war did not completely let go of our hero. Another important difference is Gabriella. In the script, she had only one scene with Rambo, and her abduction remained completely off-screen. And she disappeared not during a visit to the scum-father, but during her usual vacation with friends. Everything is presented differently in the film. Rambo and Gabriella have many scenes together and, in general, they tell us five times that she is like his own daughter to him. In theory, this is the right addition – it is quite difficult to empathize with the heroine, whom we have only seen on the screen before. In practice, alas, everything turned out not so great at all. Despite the fact that Gabriella’s screen time increased noticeably, and she even had a subplot with her father, I cannot say that this somehow helped me to get into her character. I don’t know what’s the matter – mediocre directing, acting, or both.

As in the film, Rambo went to save Gabriella, but everything ended in a fiasco. However, the details of this episode were very different from what we were shown on the big screen. In the film, the hero does not offer any resistance, after which he is beaten to a pulp. In the script, Rambo fought his way through the crowd of bandits and managed to send many of them to the next world and to cripple others. But his powers were not endless.

Realizing that he had lost his last battle, the beaten hero asked the main villain to kill him. But he deliberately kept Rambo alive to live with the consequences of his failure. After that, excuse me for the details, I took care of the hero’s need and left. Also in the film, the violence against Gabriella was significantly muted – the script included a scene of gang rape, as well as the execution of one of the girls for the edification of the others. In any case, the disappearance of such a huge layer caused irreparable damage to the overall structure of the plot. Apparently, they tried to plug the resulting hole with joint scenes between Gabriella and Rambo and all kinds of fillers, like an underground excursion of teenagers. It just didn’t work out very well. As a result, with a very modest final timing, the Rambo film essentially has only one full-fledged action scene. Well, the cherry on top is a change in the ending and the addition of a voiceover, more suitable for a superhero soap. Add to this weak direction – and as a result, we will get another example of how an imperfect script, which had the potential for further improvement, turned into you don’t understand what. However, this is nothing new for the franchise. Remember at least the history of the second part and its original script by James Cameron.

The saddest thing in this whole story is that the fifth part, in fact, crossed out the whole message of the ending of the previous film, which, in my opinion, but a good end to the Rambo saga. But there is also something ironic. If the film ultimately fails (and with this quality, it is quite likely), it could really become the last in the series – although during the viewing it becomes obvious that in the process of filming Stallone clearly changed his mind about ending the story of veteran Vietnam. So who knows, maybe Rambo’s last blood subtitles will live up to its name.