Sylvester Stallone is pumped to be playing John J. Rambo one last time, and that excitement
seems to be fueled by some new creative energy.
As he's done several times in recent months, the star took to Instagram to share new images
and backstory text for his upcoming movie, giving us a deeper insight into the iconic
character whose story he'll be closing out with Rambo V: Last Blood.
Introduced in 1982's First Blood, Rambo was never given much of a detailed history beyond
being a Green Beret, who, as you know, are real badasses.
At the time, the fact that he was trained to ignore pain, live off the land, and eat
things that would make a billy goat puke was all the backstory that we needed.
But Sly's latest post, depicting the one-man army as a fresh-faced young man not yet molded
into the ultimate killing machine, contained some surprisingly specific details about Rambo's
time in the military.
It also alluded to the idea that for him, war is more of a constant state of mind than
anything else.
A second photo, most likely taken on-set of the movie, shows Sly in character as he's
either nursing a serious headache or about to kill somebody, perhaps both.
The saga of Rambo was one of the more reliable action franchises of the '80s, despite the
fact that First Blood was never intended to launch a series.
The first flick was adapted from a novel of the same name by David Morrell, in which a
mysterious, traumatized Vietnam vet is pursued by police through the forests of the Northwest.
He's being chased down for the petty crime of vagrancy, and the pursuit does not end
well for the police.
In the novel, Rambo ends the story by taking his own life, a fate which was almost shared
by the character in the movie.
In fact, Stallone had to talk First Blood director Ted Kotcheff into cutting poor Rambo
a break, altering the ending after the original scene had been shot.
Although the film got mixed reviews, it cleaned up at the box office.
For the sequel, 1985's Rambo: First Blood Part II, the character transitioned from put-upon
anti-hero to full-on agent of death.
The follow-up saw Rambo returning to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission, which eventually
evolved into a 1-versus-everyone gunfight that seemed to involve the entire country.
That film also put up numbers at the box office, rendering the name "Rambo" as shorthand for
"badass" for the rest of the decade and beyond.
"He thinks he's Rambo."
"Rambo is a p----."
1988's Rambo III moved the action to Afghanistan, and seemingly served as an end to the series...
until 2008.
Two decades after Rambo III, Stallone returned to work both sides of the camera in the simply-titled
Rambo.
The fourth movie saw our hero laying low, minding his own business as a snake catcher
in Thailand before being forced back into action to protect a group of missionaries
from corrupt Burmese soldiers.
While the movie's reviews were mixed, franchise fans mostly found it to be a satisfactory
continuation of Rambo's story and were also blown away by its insane level of bloody violence.
Now comes Rambo V. Throughout the production of the series' final installment, Stallone
has popped up on Instagram to share set photos that help sketch out the story.
Among those photos is a cowboy hat-sporting Rambo looking intense in a rainstorm, another
with him riding a horse, an image of Rambo and his bow and arrow, and a short series
highlighting the film's co-stars.
Helping to fill in some more details is the movie's official synopsis, which helps to
explain the cowboy hat.
According to the summary, Rambo V will see John Rambo living and working on a ranch in
Arizona.
But this is no pastoral life.
John's violent past has left him feeling deeply troubled, suffering from PTSD.
When a longtime family friend informs him that her granddaughter has gone missing in
Mexico, he sets off with her to locate the young woman.
The journey leads him to uncover a ring of sex-traffickers and kidnappers, led by a vicious
crime lord whom he must stop at all costs.
As we all know, being deeply troubled and traumatized by combat has never kept Rambo
from bringing the pain in the past, and we don't see any reason why this final outing
will be any different.
While no release date has been announced, Rambo V is expected to hit screens sometime
in 2019, but just because it's the end of the line for the Vietnam vet doesn't mean
it won't be fun to watch him draw Last Blood.
"It sounds like it's very depressing, but it's not.
It's a kids' film!"
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