This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

We’re back to the world of Rambo. This time he’s on the offensive, ready to take down a whole squad of fighters. It’s nice to see him actually get to take on some villains this time and embrace the action setting where he can go all out but at the same time…this is still Rambo. So you can expect a heavy dose of violence the whole time with a pretty high body count. I would end up enjoying it more than the Rambo movies that would follow but it’s not exactly a high bar.

The film starts off by showing us that Rambo has been rotting away in a manual labor prison while Sam explains that he is still trying to help but it’ll take some time. There is a mission that Rambo can take on where he will be able to get a full pardon though. Yes this isn’t blackmail in the slightest! It’s purely a recon mission, Rambo needs to take photos to prove that there are prisoners of war over in Vietnam and then he has to get out. There will be no combat or anything like that.

Naturally this isn’t quite what happens. He ends up being thrown into a big fight and then betrayed by the rest of the unit. To Sam’s defense, he’s not the traitor here but he was played by the actual traitors which is almost as bad. This whole mission was basically a scam because the battle must go on and so Rambo is a casualty of war. The army is basically corrupt to the core in this film with Sam being the only decent member aboard.

This is one of those films where the corruption quickly gets very annoying though. Sam is muzzled very quickly despite being a fairly high ranking official in the first film. Yeah there’s always someone higher ranked but you still feel like he should have been able to do a whole lot more. Otherwise, what was really the point of getting such a high rank in the first place? Making him look helpless like this is just not a good look in the slightest. He ultimately comes through but it takes so long the whole time.

He’s still Rambo’s hype man but it would be nice if he could do a little more. Additionally I feel like the traitors get off rather easy here. Yeah someone gets hit but they do the whole “Don’t murder these guys or you’ll be just as bad!” which is always a bit on the iffy side. Especially in a down to Earth film like this because what that means is he can survive to mess more people over.

Sure we could assume he will go to jail and everything but if the corruption is this deep then that appears to be very unlikely. The fact that they were actively working with the soviets is just rough. Out of all the countries to be working with, that just looks incredibly bad.

Meanwhile on the ground front, Rambo does well as you would expect. Even by himself and incredibly outnumbered he takes down tons of soldiers and accomplishes his mission. He really never backs down and his training has really taken him a long way. Rambo makes for a good main character without a doubt and holds his own with any other action star.

The main heroine Co is also rather solid here. Things don’t go great for her which is pretty unfortunate though. She deserved a better ending. Ultimately in these films most of the characters don’t really get to last to the end outside of Rambo but this could have been a good exception. Additionally there are easy ways to write her out if you didn’t want her to be around for the sequel.

Rambo’s torture scene goes on for quite a bit as you would probably guess from the films. It’s basically not a Rambo film if that doesn’t happen to someone at least once. These films really feel like everyone’s worst nightmare about being caught in enemy territory. Your allies have abandoned you and you have no real chance of escaping. You’re definitely ready for his big escape and revenge montage of course but it’s a long road to get there. It’s the big weakness of the revenge thriller stories because you have to go through a lot to actually get to that point.

The villains are fairly generic. I thought that the villains in the first film left a lot more of an impact. The biggest villain here was probably the main army guy who was the lead traitor but of course he got off easy like I said earlier which was annoying. The real losers out of this were the other prisoners who were stuck in Vietnam. At least Rambo worked to save as many as possible but it all depends on how much you trust the government after this.

That’s why Sam should have been able to do more since it would have given you more hope in that guy. He should have at least have been allowed to bump off the main traitor villain because that would have given you a reason to think things were turning around. Hopefully he gets a better role in the third film…..

Overall, Rambo 2 really plays out like you would expect so I wouldn’t say that it’s misleading or anything. They double up on everything that made the original well remembered. There’s more action in this one, more revenge, and more thrills. Of course that also means the negatives stick around with it as well. Sometimes the trials the characters go through just overpower the positives and that’s the case here. Yes it will keep you engaged but there are enough violent moments that it’s not exactly a film you would really plan on rewatching. So ultimately I’m still saying to stick with the Rocky series over Rambo.

Overall 4/10