Arnold Schwarzenegger says that Sylvester Stallone’s latest project is “going to be a hit,” but that might just be their decades-long friendship talking, as critics who’ve seen Rambo: Last Blood clearly think otherwise.
The movie’s being panned on Rotten Tomatoes for reasons ranging from its poor storyline to the distorted political message it’s trying to deliver and everything in-between. The film currently holds a cringe-worthy 39% on the website and that number looks like it’s going to continue to drop as the reviews keep pouring in.
Many critics are disappointed by the action flick’s blatant appeal to anyone who loves Donald Trump. Stallone, a close friend of the unpopular president, plays the iconic titular character who acts as a human border wall. Throughout the movie, he kills a myriad of Mexican murderers, rapists and drug dealers and the stereotypical enemies basically sound like something straight out of a Trump campaign speech.
The over-the-top violence has also been blasted, as well as the sequel’s failure to live up to any of the previous entries in the series. A lot of this may still hold appeal for some viewers though, particularly those who love mindless brutality and right-wing propaganda. And given Rambo’s popularity and the public’s love of action movies, there’s a chance that Stallone’s latest installment could net a decent haul at the box office. After all, it’s not like this movie was trying to win any Academy Awards or anything anyway.
Still, the xenophobic gore-fest starring a 73-year-old conservative who’s been met with several sexual assault allegations over the years may not play well with today’s audiences. At the moment, Rambo: Last Blood is projected to make somewhere between $23 to $25 million in its opening weekend, but it’s not hard to imagine that it might fail to meet that threshold thanks to a lot of these negative reviews.