First Blood, the first film based on the Rambo character, was made with a budget of approximately 15 million dollars, it managed to get an approximate of 130 million dollars in cinema, so the movie became a success for the company managing to collect a good amount of money so a sequel was more than imminent. It was in 1985 that the sequel to First Blood was released, I don´t know if it is based on the book as well though I suppose it doesn´t. First Blood Part II was a box office success, more than the first, costing around 25 million and even so, it got 300 million dollars, far exceeding the first in profitability, this movies establishes the formula that the following Rambo films will use later.
First Blood Part II happens some time after the first part, Rambo is on prison working and finally they give him freedom in exchange for going to Vietnam to confirm if there are kidnapped soldiers to be saved, Rambo is specifically ordered not to save them and If he find them, has has to take some photos of them and go back.
It's funny, this movie is what I expected from the first and I finally got what I wanted, however I can't help but think that this second part is inferior to the first one, it all comes down to the fact that this second part lacks that human side that first part had. Rambo is a person with a serious PSTD and it is something that the first part knew how to deepen and show, however First Blood Part II feels as if said PSTD never existed in the first place and in general terms the whole movie is an excuse for Rambo to do a lot of action things in Vietnam, however, you could see it from another angle, human greed is so big that even if they know that Rambo needs medical help, they leave him to his fate in a prison and although they give him freedom, he has to go to a place traumatic for him, instead of sending other people.
First Blood Part II is more focused on action than its predecessor and it´s something that can be evidenced from the first moment, it´s not a bad thing to me since it is another approach, however, by doing this the movie lost everything that did Interesting to the first one, it would have been interesting to delve even more into the trauma of Rambo since he is in Vietnam now, the problem is that the film leaves all that aside and prefers to focus on the action as I said before and it worked out well because First Blood Part II was very successful thanks to that.
I must say that at the action level First Blood Part II is quite successful, we have much more action compared to the first part and all the choreographies are very good, the recreation of Vietnam is well achieved and I have to say that regarding technical aspects the film is quite competent for the next little budget. The movie gives you a good context of how things are happening little by little and it doesn´t feel rushed, the movie takes its time to build everything and then let the action flow by itself.
In short, First Blood Part II is a good action movie that despite its low budget is very competent, however, everything that made the first one interesting disappears in this sequel, making the substance of First Blood disappear as well. This movie feels like an excuse for unbridled action without more, it also seemed nonsense to have Vietnam as a location and not have used it to develop the character of Rambo considering that it was there that he developed his PSTD and yet , his PSTD is not named through the film.
