So as odd as it may be for me to admit this, until recently, I’d never seen any of the Rambo movies. Weird, I know. But thanks to the power of Netflix, I have been able to remedy that situation.

First off – the word “Quadrilogy” is pretty awful – going forward, movie franchises should not be done in four parts, although it did work out well for Die Hard.

Secondly, the way these movies were titled is incredibly confusing, as the four movies are named, in order, “First Blood,” “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” “Rambo III,” and “Rambo.” So one assumes that First Blood was not expected to inspire a franchise, because First Blood Part II is just a pretty bad idea for a title no matter how you slice it. But it’s weird that Sly wouldn’t expect a sequel to First Blood – seeing as how after watching it, you totally want to see Rambo kick some serious bad guy ass, and not waste his time beating up lame-os David Caruso and Brian Dennehy. But the first flick was still good, and the point made about the way Vietnam vets were treated when they returned home made for good drama. Although the ultra cheesy music at the end didn’t help matters.

Rambo: First Blood Part II was a bit more fun, because we finally got to see Rambo (intentionally) kill bad guys. Putting Rambo back in a VC camp made tons of sense story-wise, but he got out so (relatively) easily, you have to wonder how they were able to keep him locked up the first time. And it was great to see that Cobra Kai jerk again, once again acting like a total prick. In the end, the movie was everything an action flick should be.

As was Rambo III – this time using Rambo’s only friend Colonel Trautman being the one getting captured. The fact that the movie focused on Afghanistan, even dedicating the film to their heroics in fighting the Soviets, is of course given a whole different perspective by recent history, but there was a whole lot of insanely cool action sequences in this flick.

Now, in Rambo, all the violence in the first three is very quickly put to shame. But the fact that it is all based on the real-life tragedies of Burma/Myanmar makes it feel less “action-flick-y” and more real. I don’t know how much of the massacring was exaggerated, but if it was realistic, then damn, those guys are insane, and we should send a few real-life Rambos in there to clean things up. And Dexter’s girlfriend/Darla made for a good damsel in distress, even if she was all ga-ga for Ryan Chappelle from 24. Of course, it didn’t make sense that the bad guys took them as prisoners, given the fact that they seemed to be more in the habit of slaughtering everyone and everything, but hey, the movie need a prison camp to break in and out of.

Overall, the franchise was a ton of fun, but I have to say that it doesn’t have the emotional weight of the Rocky franchise. And while Rocky Balboa was an amazing flick that totally justified a long-in-the-making sequel, Rambo didn’t really add much more to the character and overall story, except for the tail end of him finally heading back to his family in the States. A fifth movie may be in the works, and I’ll check it out, cuz hey, Stallone is still pretty cool in my book.

As an aside, Son of Rambow was also a really cute flick, closer to Millions than to any of the Rambo movies, but a sweet family movie nonetheless.