Stallone brought intense physicality, obviously, but also hangdog vulnerability to a character who takes revenge on a cruel, unfeeling establishment and utters some of the most iconic lines in shoot’em’up history.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2022

Watchable if entirely preposterous...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 23, 2022

An ambitious, bloody, talented but pulpy mess.

| Jun 21, 2022

There's another appeal in Rambo. Simplicity. Successful action justifies all.

| Jan 8, 2018

The entryway to the disturbed psychological headspace of a single man, one bent evermore on survival, instinct trumping all.

Full Review | Jun 14, 2008

This action film hangs on an interesting reversal, taking the crazed-killer-in-the-woods theme from Friday the 13th and turning it inside out-- the psychopath is now our hero, a maladjusted ex-Green Beret played by Sylvester Stallone.

| Mar 1, 2007

Director Ted Kotcheff has all sorts of trouble with this mess, aside from credibility.

| Mar 1, 2007

As a Stallone vehicle this is sleek, slick and not unexciting, but crassly castrates the David Morrell novel on which it is based.

| Jan 26, 2006

Sylvester Stallone is one of the great physical actors in the movies, with a gift for throwing himself so fearlessly into an action scene that we can't understand why somebody doesn't really get hurt.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 23, 2004

First Blood is ragged and flashy; it ought to be a big success with audiences that value action for its own sake.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2004

Stallone underwent training in survival skills and hand-to-hand combat that helped give the film such a raw and authentic edge that excited the audiences of the time.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 17, 2001