Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden

Renegade Vietnam War veteran John Rambo comes out of retirement as a boat repairman in Bangkok to track down missionary aid workers who have disappeared in the jungles of impoverished Myanmar.

Flixster Users

70% liked it

383,329 ratings

Critics

37% liked it

140 critics

R, 1 hr. 33 min.

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone

Release Date: January 25, 2008

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: May 27, 2008

Get It:

Stats: 34,380 reviews

Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

Your Rating



clear rating
Share on: Facebook Twitter

Flixster Reviews (34,380)


  • April 8, 2008
    Rambo is back with a vengence in this wildly violent, action-packed thriller/redemption tale. Julie Benz delivers a well-acted performance in a supporting role.
  • October 31, 2009
    A real surprise. It's a pure blood and guts action classic. Rambo is back and better than ever. Probaly the best one since First Blood. Directed and written by Stallone with such energy and fearless velocity. A slick and well-crafted adventure. An intense, shocking, eye-popping, ...( read more)head-bashing, bone-crunching, blood-thristy and exhilerating action-packed thrill-machine. Awsome adreniline-pumping action entertainment. It's truly heart-pounding, very thrilling and incrediably exhilerating. Sylvester Stallone gives a teriffic action-hero performance, bringing back the darkness, regret, wearyness and emotion that made Rambo one of his most popular characters ever. Stallone proves here that he's still a legend. A riveting and straight-forward edge of your seat adventure that you cant get enough of. An escape to old-school action movie fun.
  • September 9, 2009
    Rambo for me was a lot like Tom Cruise's performance in Tropic Thunder. I expected next to nothing, somehow managed to end up pleasantly surprised for a while there then when he refused to ease off the clutch he fell flat on his silly ass again and I got turned off. And that's wh...( read more)at Stallone does with Rambo IV. I expected nothing as every other Rambo movie gave us nothing--weak plot, horrific acting, the occasional terrible one-liner, entertaining action and that's about it. Same thing here, no surprise. Didn't mind it too much. Then the grisly, over the top action (honestly, the only reason I bothered with this movie) kicked in. And I love grisly, over the top action but here it just seemed ridiculous and pointless. I actually laughed for a few minuted but once I realized it went on too long that was it. I'm sure if I was drunk I wouldn't have minded. I do thank Stallone for keeping his shirt on and not subjecting us to the large piece of boiled chicken he calls his body. Other than a few unintentionally funny parts this movie was a fart out of the ass of Rambo 3. Thanks to Stallone for trying to hold it in for so long but we all know they've got to come out sometime...
  • June 13, 2009
    He shoots a guy in half with a machine gun, and lots of heads get blown off. That about sums up this movie.
  • April 7, 2009
    Holy f**king shit!!! if you like 80's action films with plenty of violence, gore, swearing and over the top gun play then this is THE movie you want. This is absolutely AWESOME I kid you not, its the best action film or film in general I have seen for years. This truely harks bac...( read more)k to the days of old with Arnie and Stallone kicking ass. The plot is very very basic, a small bunch of do gooders want to try and change the nasty situation in Burma, they go in and get taken hostage by the ultra violent baddies. Hence an aliens, predator style rip story involving a small group of top badass mercs going in to save the day. The group is the typical bad mouthed unit from all countries with totally different skills and style which doesn't really make for good teamwork haha. I believe two are English, one American Chinese, one Indian and one US with rambo. As I said, memories of Hudson in Aliens and the commandos from Predator are strong in your mind.

    The cast are also really good, there is the slightly show off swearing thing going on which is a shame as its been done to death but the unit is small yet believeable. The idea is cliched and over used sure but it can be effective (not always) the loud mouth swearing English southerner is alittle annoying but the rest are likeable, the English sniper being a good character. The bad guys are all very effective too, the leader of the army being cruel and intense. Stallone is also surprisingly good here, he looks good, nice hair which is still dark (dyed?) looks fit, abit chunky but hey the guy is getting on, acting is deep but not great of course and the all American action man..again. I gotta say, I really thought this was a bad idea, Im no rocky fan but he really has pulled this of, Stallone has gotten better with age :)

    Still, this works well in the film and just adds to the build up. The baddies are really bad, really nasty and uber evil. BE WARNED there is an emense amount of violence, gore, blood, limbs, decapitations and knife play in this film haha :) the baddies go around killing the locals like squatting flies, they blow them up, chop them up, rape them and kill the children. They dont beat around the bush believe me, this could be the most violent movie in years. The amount of sniper shots taking peoples heads of is both cool and disturbing, I presume that would happen in real life hehe maybe.

    The effects are amazing, you can see they are using dummies but it just works as its all split second stuff. There appears to be no cgi, its all old fashioned stunts and plastic bullets, soldiers are getting holes blown in them, limbs are shot of all the time and the claret flows and splatters everywhere, plus there's action from a huge M60 mounted boat and Sly's trusted bow.

    What can I say, it just kicks ass, the final battle is the best I have seen since the harrowing opening sequence from Saving Private Ryan, you know whats gonna happen all the way but you dont care, this is old school movie action and its about f**king time haha Stallone has really hit the target and impressed me here, this is what Arnie has wanted to do since Last Action Hero but failed miserably and Im a huge Arnie fan since childhood.

    GO SEE THIS NOW...its frankly the best film in ages. If you like the good old days of action flicks with no cgi and just real men killing then this is the dogs bollocks. One warning though...this is RAW violence, extremely brutal.
    Simply for 80's fans only and probably not for the ladies haha.
    Stallone is back, the 80's are back and Im fudging loving this......AVE IT!!!
  • November 23, 2009
    Best Rambo sequel ever!
  • November 19, 2009
    It's completely retarded at every instance yet extremely enjoyable on a visceral level, Stallone scrapes the bottom of the well and somehow finds gold in his bucket. The villains are faceless monsters (figuratively and literally, heads were a flyin' in this one) with a homosexual...( read more) leader for no apparent reason other than to show how much of a sick bastard he truly is (not my thinking obviously). Stallone looks good for sixty (face excluded) and still comprehends how to deliver action goods where the bulk of mankind has let this great knowledge slip from their fingers. Burma is really fucked up and holy shit did Stallone just rip out that guy's fucking throat like Dalton from Road House? Totally fucking rad, I can't wait for parts five and six which are hopefully out soon. He should fight Mexicans or Australians, those bogan pricks need to be taken down a peg or two.
  • November 17, 2009
    I waited a long time for this movie and I wasn't disappointed. Some scenes are very harsh and sometimes hard to watch. But its all worth it when Sly slays them all at the end.
  • November 15, 2009
    Gruesome. What you would expect from John Rambo. not horrible
  • November 15, 2009
    Havnt seen any of the others - really liked this!!

Critic Reviews


February 22, 2008
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times

The hero's iconic inertia is photographed against molten skies or Judgment Day sunsets, providing moments of mythic repose between the pell-mell battle scenes. full review

January 25, 2008
Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

Crass exploitation of a serious issue, yes, and also the type of comic-book cartoonishness that the series has always peddled, regardless of the grim aesthetic and tone employed throughout this instal... full review

January 25, 2008
Kurt Loder, MTV

Its rainy murk is as oppressive as its non-stop brutality, which is monotonously undifferentiated. full review

January 25, 2008
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

This violence contains a movie, but only intermittently. full review

January 25, 2008
David Edelstein, New York Magazine

If bringing back Rocky and Rambo opens him up to more ridicule from the likes of me, itâe(TM)s also the kind of challenge at which he excels. Idiotic as Rocky Balboa was, the punches landed, and Rambo... full review

January 25, 2008
Claudia Puig, USA Today

The mouthiest mercenary, a surly Brit, is given the best line to snarl at our hero: "You can drop that thousand-yard stare. I've seen it all before, and I'm not impressed." We couldn't have said it be... full review

January 25, 2008
Kyle Smith, New York Post

This time, it's impersonal. full review

January 25, 2008
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Stallone is smart enough -- or maybe dumb enough, though I tend to think not -- to present the mythic dimensions of the character without apology or irony. Welcome back. full review

January 24, 2008
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

The movie is neither cathartic nor entertaining. full review

View more Rambo (Rambo IV) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments


  • justinlcox
    December 9, 2008
    I really thought this was the best Rambo movie to date.

    As for the postings earlier about people who don't like hardcore action movies or war movies low ratings, I disagree that they shouldn't rate them because of this. While I do feel the rating system should be reworked to take into account this as well though.

    Human nature tells us that people who don't like a certain type of movie would tend to give that movie a lower rating. Does this mean the movie itself was any worse though? Never, given a different group of individuals you could end up with a very different result. Now take those results and see if the third group even wants to see the movie based on those findings.
  • rbevanx
    September 12, 2008
    Total Shit.
    Could only watch 1/3 of it as it was that bad.
  • jeffidiyah
    July 1, 2008
    You see, if you're not an action film fan, you shouldn't rate action movies. It's the same way I don't try and rate a whole lot of dramas. I may rate a few, but I always try to stay relative. It's a pretty shitty thing to give a movie a low rating because it was "too bloody." That's like me saying a drama sucks because there was too much crying.
  • NsAaDaIdMi
    June 29, 2008
    it's a very good movie !
    it's GREAT .
    and funny at the smae time ! !!!!!
  • putaindefarce
    June 27, 2008
    gtratt
  • andylanpard
    June 13, 2008
    good move,,,shubarashii eiga,,,filem bagus....
  • radioflyerpunk
    June 9, 2008
    Best film I've seen in years
  • FallenMarvel
    June 7, 2008
    I really like the concept of the this movie. It was just really a shame that things that were portrayed in the movie is actually happening in Burma. It really show how truly evil human beings can be.
  • nbhatti4000
    April 2, 2008
    very good movie i like it. if anyone knows me please add me again at new account.
  • piterdevries
    March 21, 2008
    Ignore the reviewers. This is one of the best action films I have ever seen in my life. Fast-paced, epic, gritty and violent (as war is), and actually about a current event people should be aware of (Burma), even if they learn of it through this film. Stallone doesn't do a lot of talking, but he makes his words count. The characters are believable and the reactions the civilian-types give during the fighting, etc makes perfect sense. I've got to say that if you have any reservations seeing this film over the reviews, ignore them and see it. If you are squeamish, do not.

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Official Trailer

More Like This


Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • Crank 2: High Voltage
    Crank 2: High Voltage (59%)
  • Rocky II
    Rocky II (76%)
  • Commando
    Commando (78%)
  • Shoot 'Em Up
    Shoot 'Em Up (74%)

Facts


No facts approved yet. Be the first

Rambo (Rambo IV) : Watch Free on TV


Rambo (Rambo IV) Trivia


  • what is the title of sly's stallone's rambo IV out in 2008  Answer »
  • who is the Myanmar armed force in Rambo IV.   Answer »

Most Popular Skin